The Guardian in the sky
by GuardianH27
Summary: Story about some common no ones who turns out to be a force to be reckoned with when pushed over the edge. (Plot line might seem similar to Infinity, combination of mercenaries, terrorism and super weapons but it ain't, truthfully IDK, I didn't even got to play the beta but I'll try my best that you enjoy the ride.) Warning: contains OC! but no sugar or fat(ON Hiatus for a while)
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: First work so reviews are appreciated. story is set in Strangereal but will not stick to any A.C. plot line(meaning new characters, more drama, action, tragedy and even romance(warning Not experienced in this field), etc. on and off ground.

Also I own nothing.

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_**Prologue **_

In today's world battle's are fought in a different way. A new technology's introduction into the world had made it possible. C.O.F.F.I.N. System for fighter plane gave a pilot immense advantage in any operation, being able to react to a situation in fractions of a second, often faster than other birds in the sky.

Major super powers like Osea and Yuktobania started a new joint project called A.C.E.S (Advance Combat and Electronic Systems). Its aim was to enhance a standard fighters performance exponentially being able to have armament that will make a fighter able to take on a whole air forces alone, stay in air for weeks at end, pound down whole military divisions also but not limited to being able to defying the very laws of physics.

Project ACES was not widely publicized while other countries engaged in their own variants. The result would be that a single pilot will be able to infused with a new technology called E.X.T.R.E.M.E.Z (EXTReme Enhancement of huMan to project an advance force).The only drawback was EXTREMEZ was a selective type of technology which meant that of you were not good enough, nothing happens. Time passed the tech was enhanced further but still it was below expectations. The most a single pilot was able to increase his planes armament and capabilities only by a few notch but that was still a massive advantage in any given situation. Thus a system of hierarchy which valued a compatible person more than a non-compatible will come but it would not be bad enough to reinstate monarchy. nuggets were going to be put through various examinations to determine their rank through E to SSS, the higher the rank the better but only a few would be there above rank B and rank S and higher being rarer but none were aware that they are going to be the next front of the future battles.

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Afterword

Well there was not much as this is only the prologue which says what will be the foundation or base but the story will try to explain the godlike capacity of a protagonist aircraft in the game. It will not be limited to the line you just readed before(I'll try to be creative!) and the fighter planes action or any thing that flies in action might take some time (please forgive me for this but in the mean time the story will be enjoyable and I'm pretty confident about it!)

**A.C.E.S. :** If you played ace combat you know what it is.

**E.X.T.R.E.M.E.Z. :** Iron man reference, the acronym didn't came as a total fit but it'll do.

**Ranking system: **I'll explain it when it's needed in the story.

Also if you want me to add some content fell free to PM me.


	2. A Nugget Day at Hierirlark

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing

Feel free to give any advice

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**A Nugget Day at Hierirlark **

Well it was pretty damn cold out here, on the bus to the airbase where all of us who wanted to be a part of the air force were going for training. I am Edward Abernathy, from November city. It was snowing here like there is no tomorrow so it was wise of me to take my mothers advice and pack heavy, bringing a lot of warm clothes. Well people say that I talk too much but that's me, a cheerful moron, the person you might find first in the bar but last on the floor, I don't drink though!. As we passed the zigzag roads in this mountain region I was busy talking with others about anything that came to our mind while travelling in the bus until I looked out of the window, well the scene was breath taking, with the beautiful mountains covered in snow looking like the place was the very spot where angel landed when visiting this realm, you know like you could just drive all day long and just look at the view. The person sitting beside me was pretty quiet, this wasn't strange as some of us on the bus were nervous as we were taking a big step in our lives, we were one step closer to our dreams now. I thought that I should talk with the guy as he might be nervous, help him calm down and relax. So I thought that by asking him how he felt right now would be a good start.

"Hey you alright there" My concern's was genuine, even I would be gritting my teeth if I could not calm my nerves by chatting around with the others present here. He had been looking out the window the entire time, it looked like he wasn't feeling like talking due to anxiety. He turned at my call and I noticed his features for the first time, he was about 24 years old and was pretty good looking, had brown eyes and black hair, was pretty tall at around 6'2, almost pushing the height restriction and had a pretty good body with some muscles.

"Thanks for your concern but I'm fine here" the voice was a bit deep and low but it was very calm, hell the dude sounded like he was one of those narrators you hear on documentaries, full bad-ass but it looked like he wanted to avoid conversation so I left him and resumed chatting with a person here from the capital.

Then as soon as our bus arrived at the airbase the talks got more exited, like who was going to greet us, were we gonna have some celebrations, the boys were thinking of a sexy instructor and the girls of a handsome prince charming. I cannot say anything as I was thinking of a sexy lady with good figure's myself. I tried once more to strike up a conversation with the fellow beside me.

" Hey what do you think who our flight instructor's gonna be, some hot chick or some dude?" well I needed to break some ice here.

"Well it doesn't matter does it? We would only get to know when we meet em."the reply was, lets say below expectation of mine, you know a man has the right to dream at-least. The guy was not the most cheerful one around the block so I decided to respect the man's privacy and mind my own business. My thoughts was as soon as we hit the airbase, we were gonna strap in a raptor and zoom across the sky with a sonic boom. As soon as the bus stopped we got up, I took my bag and passed the other belonging to the quiet guy. It was pretty light, I felt sorry for him as I passed the bag, it was very cold here.

"Here take my muffler" I passed the bag and the muffler I was wearing, the muffler was hand stitched by my late grandma but I'll be damned if I let this guy freeze as he stepped out of the bus, also I had hundreds of them back home and I brought 3 with me so it was not a problem. He was just wearing a pair of jean's and sleeve less-sweater over some flimsy full sleeved shirt.

"No thanks I'm fine"I expected this one and I had the perfect counter this time.

"Dude its freezing out there and did you notice the snow falling, no offense but I think with your attire you could really use the muffler!"there, argument won, and it was for his sake too.

He looked a bit reserved at first but then looked outside again and said "umm... thanks, I'll return it later".

"No need dude just keep it, keeps you pretty warm you know."he was a bit timid and shy but thanked me again, boy I wanted to say that and I felt awesome, just the warm feeling that you have when you help someone in need.

As we got down from the bus all hell broke loose and unleashed itself in the very grounds we stood on. The instructor were screaming at us so loud that it made a loud speaker bow down in shame and that too right in our ear's. My ear's and head hurt just from listening to an instructor shout at a person at the other end of the row. I had heard that the military restrictions were now so lax that you could be dressed like a useless punk and still get in the training program but the reality was the instructors looked even more harsh than ever in the history of mankind. I think that I was spared as the instructors were only screaming at those who looked odd like, earnings(men), dyed hair,biker attire, etc. After this some of the lucky guys got to introduce themselves which they and all of us present there regretted, the instructors proceeded to fully rip apart their pride, one piece at a time.

"Okay listen up you nuggets, we are gonna play a game 'right here, right now' to break the 'ice between us' alright!"well I got a bad vibe from this, the others from the next bus were the same, it was same for all who came here, you could still hear someone, most probably an instructor shouting.

"Pick up you stuff" well it was simple. "Drop it" well the game felt very simple and easy if not for the fact that the demon played with us for about 3 damn hours, and those who could not 'play' were sent to 'warm up' by running around 3 km with all their stuff and join back, by the way did I mention it was snowing, it was freaking snowing and my whole body went numb, the shy guy was doing way better than me as he looked like he had some major stamina and he packed light. I wanted a mug of hot chocolate, hot coffee, any thing hot to keep me from freezing. After another game or two we were half dead, those who questioned these demons about the atrocities they were doing, they were taken away to gods know where. We had finally had some respite and were taking a more than well deserved mug of hot coffee in the mess hall. Soon our missing comrades came in and boy they looked dead. We found out that they had been given 'disciplinary exercises' to do which was bench pressing, push ups, sit ups, marathon, all in the snow. These guys had lost count and tears nearly came from their eyes. We were allowed to call home to tell that we were OK or tell we had packed our stuff and were gonna get our asses home A.S.A.P.

Well I had came too far just to go home, I even told my dad that I was gonna be an ace like the wardog's, he laughed and was gonna laugh his ass off if I went home now. I sipped my coffee, it was 5 in the evening but all of us were tired and even I was so exhausted that I needed the coffee just to stay awake, I was about to get up when someone passed me another mug. It was the shy guy.

"Thanks for the muffler, it really helped"I was just baffled, this idiot was here without any decent warm clothes up here at mount dry freeze, full of ruthless demons. I passed an extra jacket and said

"talk about helplessness, you came here just like that?". Well it was a bit rude bit I was tired and hoped that the guy was not offended.

"Sorry" well it looked like he really was clueless so I didn't bother pestering him more.

The same instructor marched in that were a few hours ago giving us a hell of a time, and to be truthful I was scared. The instructor's looked very happy like they hadn't had any fun for ages.

"Boy I can't tell you nuggets how fun we had today isn't that right" yep they were demon's. They didn't even bother taking pity at us, especially after what we have been through, and no browny points for guessing who was responsible.

"Now line up and report for shakedown and the shots"The instructor's had instilled fear in us in a few short hours so efficiently that it was barely a day before we had met them and with one command we dropped everything and ran for our lives. To add to my horrors my stuff was spread on the table as I was assessing what was absolutely resourceful in all that stuff and jacket was out on the chair. Well the shy guy came to the rescue, packed my stuff and helped carry my bag while I got my jacket on. I panicked a bit but I was sure that I didn't want to mess with these instructor's if I could avoid it.

As we reported to the to the medical facility the girls and boys went separate way and the boys didn't see the girls again, our stuff was checked and by that I mean it was literally spilled apart on a table and if they didn't like it, it was gone like magic. I had only the basics like sanitary, clothes and a few other thing so it went fine for me. As I got in the building I was really gonna cry, vaccines after vaccines were administered to us. I hadn't taken that many injection's in my whole life compared to those 15 minute's.

At last it was all over and I was hauling my ass to the room given to me, it had only two beds, that was a bit sad for me as bunk meant more people and that meant more fun but I was not gonna take any chance and end up in a store-room or something by asking any of the demons to shift me.

As I got in the room I saw one bed with some sanitary like shaving cream and soap bar. The room was big enough, beside the bed's were two desk and two locker as well. I was too tired to notice any more so I kept my bag under the bed, took my shoes off and planned to go to sleep but changed my mind and decided to take a bath first. I didn't wait long as the bathroom door opened, I really thanked god that we had a bathroom in our room, which was pretty lucky, no it was a mega lottery given by the angels themselves.

"Hello" the person came out and it was the shy guy, I sure was happy that I was sharing the room with a person I somewhat knew.

"Hey, funny we run into each other this much, right!"well it was true.

"Yeah, by the way I never introduced myself, I am Aaron Hunter" I shook his hand and suddenly it came to my notice that i never asked his name, introduced myself and talked a bit before taking a bath, boy we even had a water heater. After the bath we talked more, well Aaron was a bit quiet in the start but he opened up and he was actually a fun guy to be with. He was from a small town outside of Oured called 'Hope' it was on the map but wasn't well-known. We talked a bit more before lights out. The Instructor had given us the basic instructions like timings and all. We didn't have dinner today but I don't think anyone would mind after today's tiring ordeal. Soon we were sound asleep.

Well that's how my first day at hierirlark went and I became a nugget.

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After word: Well I tried to best express myself here and introduced two characters Edward Abernathy and Aaron Hunter.

I am still in the middle of writing the story so if you feel like I would appreciate character name suggestions and of course reviews.


	3. Halcyon Days in the Freezing Hell of

**Disclaimer:**I own nothing

Halcyon Days; in the Freezing Hell of Hierirlark!

Well the first week was, a manifestation of demon's on earth. The day after we came we were made to get up at 4 in the morning, Aaron was an early riser and that helped me like he was god sent to help me out. We were able to take a bath, it turned out our quarters were previously officers room so it was well equipped. The window's were placed facing east so you could see the sunrise, a first for me as I usually sleep until late in the morning. The first thing in our schedule was P.T. , or The morning monster masquerading as instructor game show. After grabbing coffee from the mess hall we reported straight for PT.

"I see you nugget's think you can take you time while i sit here with nothing to do" well some unlucky one's were late reporting and now they were going to regret it.'Disciplinary exercise' yes, it was not some ancient period where you literally whip people as punishment, it was worse. While the normal PT was exhausting early in the morning on an empty stomach, the late comers had to do the hardcore version, run lap's after lap's, push ups, sit ups, pull ups, bench press. Hell if you could survive and do all this you could forget becoming a pilot because you would be a god-damn super soldier like in the films who usually rip tanks apart with bare hands. As soon as the PT was over we hit the mess hall or the chow hall. We had 30 minutes to have our meals, out of which 15 were spent in the line, 5 in finding a place to sit and identifying the food we were served. This is no joke, we literally were trying to find out what the goo we are given is, only thing helping us stuff it is that we were starving from yesterday. Even Aaron who usually was quiet and would not complain was making face's.

"Ed this is food right?"well the good news was we had smashed the glacier into smithereens last night and were calling each other by nick name's, the bad news was I had no idea what to give as an answer. We still had our breakfast. Our stomach were dead and our tongue's not responding to taste. What was more horrifying was our instructor were happily eating this stuff from outer space like it was their favourite dish.

"Those of you who are really enjoying the meal like by taking there sweet time to eat will have to take 2 more servings"

Aaron and I both stuffed ourselves. I was gonna puke and barely managed to hold it in. The coffee was like it was stolen from prison supply depot but at mount dry freeze of demon and monster's, which both of us room-mate's have agreed was the aptly correct name of this place was a basic survival necessity, you just cant jump out here without warming yourselves with some hot coffee, except if you are an instructor. The demon has two meaning in the name by the way, one for our dear instructor's and the other...

Well speaking of the place well it is a legend among all nugget's, it is the very place the Demon lord took off for one of his missions so the other is to pay homage to the demon lord, the very first ace legend in the sky. Some said he was a brutal tyrant and slew all who stood in his path, some say he was a soldier, doing what he was told to help his side win and some said he was a knight in the sky, fighting for honour and pride and sparing those who gave up their arm's in face of his might. Well I cant say anything as I a was not there when it happened but whenever you hear his name it inspires awe and fear at the same time. As we went for our lecture's we found that our instructor were pretty good at teaching if you can overlook their preference of causing us misery at every possible chance.

We were taught the basic boot camp stuff like Basic survival skills, self care buddy system during the week. Near the end of the week a nugget asked

"Sir why are we doing these unnecessary stuff, our job is to fly right?"well the instructor laughed, I knew it was gonna get worse.

"Good question nugget, well line up and report to the hanger no. 8 all of you", well it was first week so I thought how bad could it get, I was dead wrong to underestimate these demon reincarnation's. At hanger no. 8 was an C-130 Hercules transport. We were told to line up, were strapped with some device around our wrist, it was like a bulky watch and we were strapped with a parachute on our back, wore our survival kit and suit. Then without explanation told to board the plane. We were given radio helmets and our parachute were hooked in a line that was running over head us in the plane.

"Listen up nuggets, you will be dropped around Hierirlark air base and your job would be to haul your asses back."

There was a commotion but the instructor continued anyway.

"On your wrist are GPS tracking device with a panic button, press it and a ride comes to pick you up but there is a penalty to it. Of course if you feel that it is necessary then don't hesitate to call in the cavalry. Also don't worry as we can monitor your vitals from the device so if we see you ass is in danger we'll pick you up."Well that was reassuring, soon afterwords the jump light turned green and we were dropped with a pause in a group of 3- my turn came I jumped without a hitch, leaned a thing from taking to my bud that you gotta have a bit of faith in yourselves. The radio helmet were given to us and the frequency was not set. As you jumped you could tune up with those who drop with you. Soon I hit the ground, well the first thing i did was to get rid of the parachute, it would be a bother as there was little use of it. Soon another two guys made a touch down, it was Aaron and James. Well I didn't like James as he was an arrogant bastard.

"Hey Ed keep the chute, we will need it later."Aaron Said while wrapping his chute up neatly. The guy knew what he was doing so I didn't ask any questions and did what was told.

"You moron's have you lost it, why are you packing your chute's" well Aaron didn't answer him, he seemed pretty busy, so i followed the same suit.

"Ed switch to frequency 127.12"Well it was a good idea to make use of the radios.

"This is Aaron to Edward, radio check, looks al-right, report radio condition, any damage from the drop."Well I was a bit surprised, this guy was good.

"Hey you punk's listen to me."well he really was pushing his luck, I was getting annoyed by this prince not so charming. Only if girls would get the message and stop running after this jerk.

Up above the sky an E-3 quietly observer's the nugget's below,

"This is AWACS Odin to ground control, the last of the jumpers are down. You sure it was a good idea to have this exercise."

"This is ground control to Odin, I don't know but it seems good so there is no problem, we are tracing vitals and all are within normal ranges, they are just a but exited."

"This is Odin, roger that, continuing observation"

"Are you two retarded, we need to build a shelter right here and right now" well this guy was getting on my nerves. As the girls were not participating, Mr. cool and dashing decided to show his true colours.

"I would have been better off with a 4 year old than you guy's" well he was all talk and no show, had been jabbering for an hour's time. I wished to deck him but didn't, Aaron was smart enough to warn me in advance to not to talk with prince if not necessary. We were making good time but it would take about 3 day's to go back to base in good weather and these mountains were notorious for having bad weather in an instant. Our instructor were pretty through in where to drop us, right in the middle of no where. It was getting dark as we proceeded so we decided to set up camp there.

"How are we supposed to sleep in the open? Are you guy's nuts" I was really frustrated and I was gonna kill this guy.

"Well Mr. Fabulous why don't you call your servants to get stuff done for you if you are having so much trouble with me and also this is my last warning to you I you, even once again, whine like a dog I..."

Well Aaron was pretty pissed and the prince had really crossed the line to get this soft spoken guy threatening him, adding fuel to the fire he even cut him in the middle of his sentence.

"What you gonna do, huh?,hu...buaargh!" What happened was Aaron putting a good punch to the guy's stomach and getting a one hit K.O.

"What was that?"well I was shocked, this quiet calm guy was on the offensive.

"What? You want me to throw this trash off a cliff or something?"It was scary as I thought he might just do it.

"Hey Ed, I ain't no saint and for the record I would have buried this ass alive if you weren't here."

Well after the tiring day it looked like this guy had snapped.

"Well I was polite enough to keep quite despite the remarks, If I don't retort it is because that it's really not my forte and if he thinks he has a right to boss around. this ass shipped form the capitol thinks that he is a God or something"

Well I tried to calm him down but he was already satisfied with that punch. I also wished to deck him but he looked pitiable in his present condition, also the drop was a bit sudden and the whole exercise was pretty stressful. We made a burrow in the soft rocks of the cliff side and took shelter for the night. The chute were used as wind breaker at the entrance and as a bedsheets to keep us clean of the dirt.

Aaron was pretty adamant on burying the prince in the snow, justifying the act by saying the snow on him would act as a sheet of insulation but I knew better, what he really wanted to do was bury the bastard alive and I totally agreed with him but compromised on taking funny pictures of him and shoving him in the burrow with us.

"Hey bud I didn't knew you were this cruel" The picture I got was a kind person who wouldn't hurt a fly, but he turned out to be a berserker, waiting to hand you your ass.

"Well I ain't but this was one of the exceptions, the guy was just whining and expected us to do everything for him, I tell you that if you had waited a bit more he probably would have demanded a piggy back ride from you. I know how he was feeling so knocking him out was a good call on my part, while burying him, seemed good until we thought about the pictures, dude we were all frustrated and he was not helping." Aaron was right, even I knew it, I don't know how he survived the demon instructor's. Then I remembered he was the son of some hotshot politician so it kinda made sense, now I was afraid for my friend but he just said a few word like he had something planned.

The next day

Aaron said it was the moment of truth, if this guy passes then he is worth trusting.

"What happened? Can you tell me why I feel like shit?"well it was like a blessing from the gods, just cook a lie and be on our merry way.

"I knocked you out with a punch" now all was lost, well I admire the courage to tell the truth but I was unsure about many things.

"Sorry I must have pestered you a lot, I am really sorry" I felt he was doing it to save his ass for now but his words had sincerity so I dropped the matter in my head.

"Get up we still gotta cover quite some distance to get back to base So saddle up" Aaron took James on his back and asked me to carry stuff, after a while James said he was fine and can walk, even took all the load off me, well my opinion of this guy had sky rocketed. Even Aaron was surprisingly fast to patch up with James and apologised to him. Then latter even I got talking with him, we talked about politics's and the fact that he joined the air force so he could prove to his father that he was capable enough. Aaron and James together helped cover distance faster by predicting the most efficient path towards Hierirlark. We could have been back by end of the day.

"This is Peter brown does anybody copy" well the transition was sudden. Aaron gave signal to James to reply and told him to not to mention that we were there.

"This is James, What happened?"Prince charming was a bit baffled on Aaron's directions but still decided to follow them. We got to know that Peter, a nugget with us was in trouble. We decided to stop and discuss the matter.

"This is Odin to Ground control, a trainee named Peter's has called nearby trainee's for aid, but there is no distress signal coming please advice" The controller could send a rescue team but had order's to dispatch only after confirming with ground.

"Odin this is ground, be advised we have no anomaly in the vitals display here, Observe the situation development and report if there is any change."The E-3 sentry controller was a bit annoyed, he had to keep track of nuggets spread all over the place and now was this situation. As per the procedures decided upon before, the controller was not supposed to contact the trainees. All he could do was observe, and even he was intrigues so he agreed with the ground controller's advice.

"All I am saying is that this might be some prank being pulled by these nuggets and it will go real south trust me."

James was pretty sceptical about what Aaron was saying "you mean to say that this is a trap?"

"Yeah, Aaron why would someone pull such a shenanigan?"Even I was confused with the situation here.

"OK now let me tell you kids what's going on" well I wanted to give a retort but he was giving his explanation.

"First, this Peter's guy has not called the rescue yet, this means he is in not a pretty bad situation."

"Secondly, he is way far off course, if he was even lost then why risk waiting for a radio call knowing he was lost and may not be able to call anyone on the radio when the panic button is right on his wrist."He pointed at his tracker's panic button which showed how easy it was to send a distress signal.

"Finally, after we jumped, I saw 4 proper chute's so it is not like he was alone, the other three had a better chance of meeting up with him."

James was getting on the same train of thought as Aaron, now the question was whether we should check it or not. We decided it was better to check on them but as Aaron had arranged, I and him were not here, only James was here. Well it made sense as James was quite the ladies guy, and almost all the boy's except Aaron and probably me, as I had a bit of new found respect for the guy were jealous of him. Our James here had quite a background to him, only son of a single powerful politician and her mother was a pretty well known human right activist who had worked quite a lot to help the citizen's of Lesath recover from Caspar Navarro's deadly war scheme that had lead to a war in the south.

Also you can say that we had nothing better to do. If there was going to be trouble, why not enjoy it. It seems that Aaron, me and James totally agreed to the point. James was to act as bait and we would be his backup. We were getting evil by the second, and if there was real problem we would just help these guys and call it a day.

Well I had to point a few flaws here "What if they are armed?"

Aaron right now had a grin as he answered "We were not issued any firearm as this is only a training exercise and I don't think they would go as far as to use the survival knife so there is only one option."

"Yeah!"James was also exited and giggled with Aaron. Well I was kept out of the loop but as every thing was gonna be fine so we proceeded with the operation 'saving private moron's first class'.

We arrived near the location, our mission was to keep an eye on James.

I was the bait so I felt a little nervous but was relieved by the fact that either the most ballsy or the most moronic pair of friends were my back-up. I actually felt great coming here, I usually acted high and mighty as I was usually targeted as a friend because my parents name carried prestige with it, my full name is James Dunbar. Since childhood all my friends were like only there to use me. I was pretty dishearten by the fact that no one looked at me as a person but a son of my mother and father. I convinced my father to allow me to get in Osean air force to prove myself, well i have not proved nothing but got two morons to deal with. I saw the Peter's in front of me, he was sitting beside the tree trunk grazing at the ground. Soon I heard "Incoming" from behind me, Aaron warning me but it was too late, I was hit on the side of my head and my vision went hazy then blank while i fell on the ground with a numb feeling.

"Get...Hurr...we...ack up." Well I saw Aaron pull me back, i was still feeling numb but the feeling was getting back.

"Rest here buddy we got you covered."well it was reassuring that i was safe for the time being. After a while when my sense's started to come back i heard someone screaming.

"Eat snow and get a pneumonia or something James you enemy of all the boys in Osea!"

"Yeah , yo...pffft" I saw Aaron putting a shot at the guy's face, my vision was still hazy so it was not quite clear what happened.

"Here I got some snow for ya all"

"Hey Abernathy why are you taking that womaniser side?! Don' you know he is our enemy!"

"Oh shut up who cares"

" WHAT! even you are like that, get tha...pfffft" another one was hit by the sharpshooter Aaron.

Well the sight was unbelievable, Aaron and Edward were having a snowball showdown with the Peter and three other guys, I knew this was gonna happen but the first snowball was right on the mark and struck my head so I was kinda lost. Well what was the hold up?, I got up and provided the desperately needed reinforcement to my side.

"Hey the general decided to show, now we gonna show em who's the boss!"well it was good to see Edward's in good spirit, actually he is always in too much spirit and that is a problem sometimes. We had snow fight, wrestling, took some pictures and in the process found some embarrassing photos that, Edward and Aaron had taken the liberty to click.

We played till sundown, we would have continued but it was getting cold and we needed a place to keep our collective asses from freezing. Well by the time i could start thinking Aaron had already suggested a plan which none of us bothered to question. We simply dug a Huge burrow under the ridge that the Aaron had used as a cover to sneak around. We had two chute's with us so we used one as a floor cover, though it was not necessary but still we appreciated not getting more dirty than we were and the other chute was used as a wind breaker. Edward said that Aaron had done the same yesterday and it was rather very comfortable.

It turned out that Peter and gang was really lost but when they heard I was in the neighbourhood they decided a makeshift prank to have a revenge, dish served cold, well they got more than what they bargained for.

"Well who was it who shot me" The question pestering me for some time, it was quite a shot, I was literally knocked out with it.

"No offence but it was me" It was Andrew Lawrence, he told me he was a pitcher at high school.

"That was on heck of a pitch dude, no matter who comes in the fight, he would get a well placed grenade pitched right on his face for starter's" I joked open heartedly for the first time in many years of my life.

"Hell, Aaron was also pretty badass, he literally made these guys eat snow" Edward was right, Aaron had done the feat right in front of me but too bad my vision was hazy for the first shot.

"It was just those two shots, these guy's had their mouth open so wide, the shot was not even aimed."Well I had found some good pals and was looking to spend some time with them.

Until

"So you nuggets thought, 'To-Heck-with-the-exercise-lets-have-a-blast' eh?"

well the result was we were dead last to return and our whole little fun time was observed with a bird in the sky,the result was we spent the night outside in the Air Field and were given the 'Morning Coffee Duty' Which translated as get your ass in gear at 0330 Hour.

"We are sorry" came the collected shivering voice of the 4 private moron's.

"The problem is who will get up at 3:30 in the morning and make all the coffee?"

This question by Edward was answered by silence, all of us still in our suits, sharing the chute's as the only defensive line against the bone chilling wind's in the night.


	4. Good Morning Mt Dry Freeze

**Good Morning Mt. Freeze Dry**

"Hey Abernathy, Abernathy get up" Well it was my ever dependable friend Aaron's voice but it was like he was just out of some industrial freezer, well the thing is we are room mate but the only problem is we were not in our room.

WE WERE OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE WARM, SITTING ON FROZEN CONCRETE WITH OUR ASSES 'F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G' OFF AND EVERY SINGLE BONE IN OUR BODY BIENG CHILLED LIKE IT WAS JUST DIPPED IN LIQUID NITROGEN.

Yeah that was the truth, we were out of our cozy beds out in the open. The thing was we were being punished by being told to spend the night outside. We though that we would be told to get back in after a while but we literally spend the night outside. To clarify my point, we were at Hierirlark airbase, and for those not familiar with the place, it was given the nickname 'Mount Dry Freeze' and it is still a bit under exaggeration, it even had a very suitable suffix, 'Full of Demons and Monsters', so the name that came out was 'Mount Dry Freeze Full of Demon's and Monsters'.It was our instructor's that were responsible for this ordeal, they were real demon's reincarnate, we don't bother remembering their name's as all of them are just plain evil. The make terrorist look like kids with plastic toys. The temperature was near freezing. Though we had our survival suits from the exercise yesterday, it didn't help that we played in the snow and got a bit of it in our suits, which melted and gave us a hell of a time while going to sleep. We were tired as we reported around 6 in the evening. While other were having the remaining time of the day off, we were told to work ourself to exhaustion till 8 in the freezing night and I think I went to sleep at 11, courtesy of the demons and freezing wrath of mother nature. We were told that we had to sleep in what we had. Aaron was complimented for his idea on using the chute as we told them what exactly happened. They knew what was going on from the sky but wanted to confirm it. We were all together in this, that is what a person would think but it was really that the instructors would not bother separating the innocent or the guilty, for them the more misery they caused the better.

"Hey Abernathy get up" well I was up but my body refused to leave the safety of the chute and face even more cold than it was enduring. Well the rest of the group was still sleeping. One was on my right, he was the prince charming the girl's wanted to visit but did not as despite high they held this prince , it was not worth messing up with the demons. He was James Dunbar, well he told us his name later. I knew he was a son of a major hotshot but Dunbar was even more of a hotshot as my father supported him.

On my left was the place where Aaron slept, well he slept like a baby as soon as we were set. Let me explain the ingenuity of our, mainly my room mates plan. We had two chute and Aaron told that we could lay one under us and the other would be above us. Well James argued that it was pointless to lay it on the ground but Aaron said that it was necessary as it would save our body from loosing heat to the concrete. Well for the rest of us, we just touched the ground and agreed with the argument. As we slept the parachute was pulled between us subconscious babies.

"Hey Jamie, how long are you gonna sleep, get up, its almost 4." well he was up in first call and got up to his feet instantly, no remorse of leaving the cover of the parachute. It was maybe because Aaron was calling me so James sleep was broken and when Aaron called him he was up.

"Man it is way to cold here, leave me be, I don't wanna get outta the chute" well I was complaining like a baby but it was no use, unlike Aaron who was kind enough to get out in a discreet way, making sure the cold wind rushing in didn't meet my body, James had just stood up where he was, letting me face the full wrath of the mount dry freezes cold wind. Then even I got up. James and me planned to raise the cover from the rest of the guy's but Aaron opposed the idea saying that we three would be enough, well I felt grumpy that I was the one out but then walked with the gang and got to the store room with James. We got the coffee beans and got back to where Aaron was. He had talked with the logistics before-hand so he knew where the stuff was, the bean sack had the prefix of it torn recently and the word and the suffix were '_Coffee supply'_.Well they were just speculations but the coffee now looked even worse than the one you might find in prison's.

We got to work as we set up the cups and grinded the coffee, added a bit of sugar on Aaron's request. James suggested to moderate as some people liked their coffee strong with-out sugar. My thoughts were 'To heck with their preferences, they should be thankful as we were kind enough to get up early in the morning. Well Aaron and James were the type that once they think about it and will make it happen so I knew it wasn't worth arguing. After a while we saw Peter coming towards us.

* * *

"Hey is the coffee ready?" Well I asked shamelessly, well what could I do if these guy's had already done all the work. I am Peter Cronwell, a normal guy if you leave scheming prank's out of it. Well it was a talent I had since childhood, to be accurate it was just a habit I didn't let go and now it was a part of me, that had almost died. After coming here to Hierirlark or very 'precise' name given by my fellow friends was 'Mount dry freeze full of demons and monsters' well it was pretty easy to remember as that was the truth. I thought of a mountain of pranks I would pull as I got here, as the rules were pretty relaxed now if I moderated myself I could easily get away every time. Then I got off the bus and like a knock out punch the cruel reality hit me, the instructors were relentless with no pity or remorse. Boy I thanked god that I had not brought anything funny and got a haircut before coming here. Well the thought crossed my head because yesterday I pulled my first prank in a while the truth was I was lost with 3 other's and it went something like this.

"Hey Andrew I think we are lost!"well I panicked a bit, well we were given enough training to survive but, lets just say we had most of it go over my head. It was the same for the other three with me.

"Yes we are, now what to do."Well this guy was pretty plain almost like me and we had lost all hope. The other two with us were of no use. We proceeded a bit where we thought was the right way. Well after I while I remembered that I had a radio!.

"Hey have you gone nut's!, do you think you will there is someone nearby and we have a lucky chance to hit his frequency."Well it was worth a try so I broadcast my message. Well the panic button was here right on my wrist but I was pretty sure by pressing it I signed a one way ticket to endless torment of hell so I passed the notion. I tuned to the basic frequency given to us as a part of our survival training, well you could use another one also. If someone was smart enough to tune his radio then he probably knew the way. After a while came a reply.

"This is James here, what's wrong Peter" I had said my name before and told what was wrong. After a while we were told that we were being rescued by someone we hated. The thing is he was a ladies guy and by that I meant that the majority of the girls liked him and most of them were quite the stunner's and they liked him to an extend that even after him flat out refusing them in such a way that if I had done the same I would be unable to patch up with them. He was a son of a politician and who didn't knew his mother as a women who was helping lesath citizen recover from a devastating war. So my mind suddenly had a shock pass through it and I had an idea.

"Hey how bout we pull a prank, it isn't like anyone is looking and we will just say sorry and have him lead us back if necessary."Usually you would have a storm of opposition on this notion wax raised in the sticky situation we were in but now were just smiles, wicked one by the way. We had little time but luckily we were at the perfect ambush spot, the thing was what to do. Well we had just tackling him to the ground, digging a hole but the most simple was the one by Andrew's, just throw the snow at him. We agreed, we moved to our places and I was to sit as bait to lure him in. Well I felt almost that I should take up acting as a profession by the way I sat there. The thing was we were all unpopular with girls and hated James for being a mockery of our delicate mental condition, he didn't knew the feel and turned down one chick after other while we were thought of useless beings, the instructor were using a make-do word called 'nuggets' and we didn't exist in their dictionary. Well as James came Anderson sprang into action, a well placed throw and it was so good James fell to the ground. Well I was satisfied with that shot but there was a problem, that was we had knocked out the guy that was supposed to lead us and the bigger one was there was someone from behind James who tried to warn him of the shot. I was surprised as it was Aaron, a pretty quiet guy who barely spoke to anyone except Abernathy the motor mouth. I was shocked as Abernathy himself was here and he started throwing snowballs at us as Aaron pulled back James to cover. Then I remembered the we were dropped in a group of at least 3 so it was not that James summoned them with magic, Aaron had pulled James to cover, well I had no regret as Andrews had gave him a knock-out blow but still I wanted to bury James, I don't know why!? and I had the most fun day after I came here at Mt. Dry Freeze, the name is pretty catchy. We spent the night together in Aaron's ingenious Hidey-Hole and chatted all night.

* * *

Now I was back in present at the base and after the nights ordeal was over, which is better if I don't recall, was passed a cup by Abernathy with a harsh remark.

"Here have some coffee and wake up sleeping beauty, you are turning out to be more trouble than you are worth"

Well I was pretty annoyed at the remark but it with the coffee gave me quite the kick I needed to get back in action. When I asked what to do about the other, Andrew's was here and James told us not to bother with them. The most of the preparations were done and we were sitting around and sipping some coffee, it was more important to have a hot, mind you not warm, H-O-T cup of coffee than a bed to sleep in. As we were Chatting and sipping some coffee the instruc... ahem, the demons arrived, probably to check whether the coffee was ready or not, they even bought Thermos flask!

"OK where is my coffee nugget's?, I need it hot and strong you hear me?" well he was not too forceful but still it was loud enough. We proceeded to give the piping coffee to the instructors. There were no chairs so the instructors took the liberty to take a seat on the table where the big coffee dispenser was sitting.

"Well nugget's there we go" the three of them took a sip and our lives's depended on that sip so I had my fingers crossed.

"Well who made this!?" well we were scared, was it too light or too strong, well a storm of question hit me and had me stunned but then a thought passed my mind, these guy's were like god knows when they got up to make the coffee, well frankly it was pretty good compared to the other days, the beans were not powdered to dust but were like some little minute crumbs so the taste of the coffee came out, and some bit of sugar which was put in it was noticeable but did not hamper the taste of coffee beans from coming out. I thought of coming forward as I was responsible for getting them in trouble and didn't even bother getting up to help them out. So I thought 'After all this, I will be damned if these guy's got into any more trouble just because I wanted to pull a prank to blow some steam off.'So I went ahead.

"It was..."well I wanted to finish by saying 'me sir' I didn't care if I was strapped to a rocked and had my ass shipped to Mars by express space deliveries but what happened was the most surprising , these three moron's burst out together.

"...US SIR" I was surprised, these very guys who were shaking from the fear of reprimand were now standing firm and they were looking very pissed, staring at me. My voice was suppressed and now the hammer was about to fall, well I was really glad that these moron's people whom I called friend's.

"Hell boy you caught a cold or something, speak up like those nuggets"

Well now there was nothing to loose and I went ahead.

" IT WAS US SIR!" well there it was, wheither for good or bad.

"Now this coffee is the coffee that I want in the morning, Good job cadet's keep it up." well we were a bit surprised or to be more accurate it was like we were struck with thunder, we were complimented for the first time, no retort, no sarcasm, no shouting, just a compliment. Well the instructor got up from the table and finished sipping their coffee. After that we got a pat on our back and boy despite not doing a thing I was swelling with pride, it was 4008 hr or 4:08 in the morning. Well the instructors were frank with us and we actually had a good time chatting with them.

"Well fill up my flask will ya Pete" I did as I was told, I took the flask from instructor Mark Fordyce and the other's, Crist Silva then Raphael Rodriguez. Well they were good when they weren't screaming at us. The three other's were hard at work as we saw our instructor's gulp down a cup after another and also have their flask filled, we had a little premonition as more instructors will come in probably with thermos and then will come nugget's so we were worried. On the brighter side was that we could call the instructors by name so it was pretty convenient and felt like an achievement.

"Hey moron's don't worry if you make surplus, we'll just pass out to the base faculty and by the way you all will call us by name and as long as you add sir in the end or before the sentence, you can call us as you like" well I was soon running out of word's. This time the profanity was not meant to hurt our ego, it was like a friend calling you and to call them by their name was like a god given bragging right.

"Hey Pete come with me Aaron, and James need more coffee and sugar" Well I gave the coffee filled flask back to our instructors and ran off.

"Hey Pete, you sure we are awake" well the recent turn of events were baffling so the question felt pretty sane.

"Don't know and I don't care, if this is a dream then let it be" Abernathy, the motor mouth agreed with my thought as we went to the store room and got more sacks of coffee bean and sugar.

As we Aaron and James brewed more coffee, more instructor's came, and all of them wore a smile after they took the coffee and soon the base commander came with a few officer's and pilot's. We all were surprised as he grabbed a cup took a sip and gave out a sigh of relief. Olaf Clegg, the base commander and pilot's which we rarely got to meet were here. Let's say the coffee was a hit and still more was coming.

"Hey Peter look if you have the time to laze around go help Edward bring supplies" well I got to work. After bringing sacks after sacks we were exhausted. Soon all of the people enjoying the coffee went away, well a lot of them had thermos flask with them so the coffee ran out fast. Well we had 3 dispensers today instead of one so we were doing okay. Soon the nuggets came the first group was here and as they took the coffee, they dropped the bomb on us.

"Who made this coffee, looks like shit" well he just meant to hurt our pride while he was clearly enjoying the coffee. Well Aaron, James were smiling, Edward was too and then I noticed I had a similar one on my face. Well it for what it was worth, we were more than happy and it got even better as Mark was coming towards the coffee table and it looked like someone's day was going to be ruined.

"Well lookie here what i found guys" He was followed by Raphael and Christ. The look on the nuggets face was one to remember. It was like they were at the end of a gun's barrel and the gun was the one Möbius one destroyed at stone henge. Well I will take pity and not explain how they were made to do push ups there in the morning and then taken away by Raphael. Well the rest of the nuggets approved of our coffee as the seemed to take a cup and then after finishing it two more, if Christ and Mark were not there barking at them, they would have enjoyed the coffee chatting. Well I had a worry that we were also supposed to report for P.E but also needed to pack stuff up.

"Keep the coffee coming fellas"Well it was a simple comment that we followed. After the nugget's were gone we were a bit tired. Soon a 4 wheeler off road truck came along and we were told to have the three dispensers loaded on it. We got the dispenser's on the truck and were told,

"What you waiting for? Get on will ya?"we hurried on the truck, mark got in the passenger sear while the 4 of us with Christ got on the back loading bed. Christ sat on the roof while we sat down around the dispensers. Soon the truck started moving. Andrew's was still sleepy as I didn't notice him after the talk with mark and company. We were taken to the officers hall, yep the place the mechanic, pilots and faculty had meal. We then got the dispensers down and took them in the hall. Inside we found that we were treated pretty favorably, after getting the dispensers down we were told to distribute the coffee. We were surprised that it was liked by the officers as well. We were thinking had a witch drop a potion in it or it was just our plain hard work. Soon the mystery was cleared to us.

Nobody liked to get up early so they kinda threw stuff together and served it, ours just had a little more effort and here at 'Mount Dry Freeze' a coffee just above your average coffee was something like the difference between heavens and earth. It was not noticeable to us as the first batch was so-so from which we drank but the other were pretty good as we too a few cup's ourselves.

There was a problem now, we were told to report for morning PE and we were late by half an hour. I think we were on cloud nine long enough, now we were gonna have our very lives at stake here as we were exhausted from all the work and we were going do a super soldier regime of PE now.


	5. Open the box full of goodies will ya

Open the box full of goodies will ya?

"Hey Ed, you think will survive this one?"Well this time Aaron was the one with the question and frankly we all knew the answer's. We were aware that we were late, the laughter of the nugget's in the back row made sure that we were in deep trouble. I was getting nervous as time seemed to slow down, the morning was long gone and we were about to see hell, It wasn't like we were gonna count on our morning work, one of the thing you learn when you get here was no matter how good you did, after it was over with, it was ancient history.

"So you hero's decided to show up eh? What held you?" All of the nugget's eye's were on us. Then instructor Rodriguez began.

"Listen up boy's, these are the role model nugget's here, as all of you lazy asses decided to call in the cavalry, these guy's went bat-shit crazy, and walked back to join up with some other who had lost their way to stop those who were going to single-handedly invade Belka and despite the fact there was a storm coming at them and they simply refused to listen to the warning on the radio like they were some snow badger's and even blew off some steam by playing in the snow as the storm inched closer by the second. The sun went down and the mountain were gonna send down their wrath right on their head, we here at ground control thought they were gone for good and we really were about to write letter's saying that these idiot's were dead because they didn't gave two flying bird salute to mother nature!. The plane overhead on the next day found these moron's back on track and they were here by the evening. Well I was sure they were dead, we even sent a ground team there later to find out what the hell was going on and there we found out that there was a huge ass burrow in the ground, with sign's that there were some ferocious and not to mess with people sleeping there. Then to instil some discipline in them we made them work their asses off and then told them to spend the night outside, with nothing but what they had with them, and by the way there was not a single complain from them while we did all this, it was like they could go on forever if we didn't stop. The 'Spend-The-Night-Outside-With-Only-What-You-Have' was our last effort to make them squeal and to be sure, we told them to make the morning coffee too. The result, hell as soon as we got up expecting our daily coffee, we found these moron's with three dispenser's up instead of one. They were sipping coffee and chatting away like it was nothing. We took the coffee and I don't need to tell you that it was pretty good compared to any other day."

Well I had the most stupid look on my face since I was born. Well it was same for all of us, this explained why were we treated different since morning. My brain was literally refused to accept reality, invading Belka, a heavy snow storm that we brushed apart like it was nothing. Well we did notice all the snow after we got up but passed it as normal snowfall. Now for the night storm, well there were violent winds during the night but the chute covering the burrow hole was folded multiple time's by James and Aaron had secured it to the corners of the wall of the entrance, so despite the storm we were fine. Well none of us were aware of what we were doing and how deep in trouble we were in. We were just there standing dumb struck. Well Instructor Fordyce was here to take us to the main building. None of us went there until we had paper work to do. Well we had nothing to do there and we were more likely gonna land in trouble if we were caught roaming there without anything to do. We were already outta our minds so we just looked straight and walked straighter. Well we got a few cheers on our way both for coffee and our survival stunt. Soon we arrived at a room with the plaque 'Base commander' well we were pretty anxious but as we had not done anything wrong, except to ignore any warning on the radio's about a storm coming. As soon as we entered the room we gave our salute, the instructors didn't care about them but this was the base commander here, he was literally the god around here.

"It's all right boy's have a seat and be at ease." well we took our respective seat's and now were told what was going on.

The thing is after circum-pacific war and year's after that a few file's were declassified, it was found out that one of the best squadron of Osean air force was lost not to any super weapon or some trap laid for them but they had been lost due to some major issue that chain of command had with them. So policies were made to give freedom to the pilot's or any other armed forces member for the matter, so as to not hamper them during an operation and they were also in the best position to make assessment in any given situation, then it wasn't like the armed forces were lawless, if a report of misconduct came, it was treated pretty seriously. Now we had the sudden exercise not only because the instructor's thought of it but it was sent forward by some high bureaucrat's who wanted review how was the training going. Well the storm was a blessing in disguise as it helped to give a reason for evacuating trainees. Well the committee was worried and asked themselves for the evacuation, which was a good thing that they were concerned for us but it was a bit counterproductive as they now had called off a survival training exercise and had a little to report, obviously saying a survival exercise was called off because the weather was harsh was not an option. Then we came in the picture and with a few exaggeration, we were now some badger's who didn't care about anything. The work before spending a night outside just after getting back to base and after that making damn good morning coffee was just the sugar icing over chocolate doughnut, as of now the word was we had one of the most fierce and competitive pilot's in training and the irony was we were yet to have our first flight. The bottom line we were told to become the front page face of Hierirlark nugget's because we unknowingly pulled a stunt that was pretty badass by all means. Even Aaron and James, who were mainly the ones responsible were now clueless on what to do as from the talks with the base commander, backing out was not an option. Frankly I think even with the storm we nugget's would have done well, we were going through some heavy exercise daily. The base commander showed us email after email on his computer congratulating him on a job well done. Well a lot of people were critical of the fact that without strict rules the training loosed its effectiveness, that was proved by the fact that a training exercise that would have been barely given any notice was this over exaggerated but when the commander showed what happened on the stormy night thinking we were still clueless and he was on the spot.

There were avalanches, big ones, whole mountain side had shifted and a normal trainee would have surely died, well even a professional soldier would have had a very close call if he was with the same equipment as us and we were literally going like we didn't gave a damn about what had happened. I was thankful to god as I had pretty capable people with me.

"Now the question is not you are capable enough or not, you have already proved it but it is can you improve the other with you?" Well it was a pretty straight question and I was in no position to give an answer. James was looking at Aaron and he gave the nod. If it was me in the past, I would have acted like the king of the world but the thing was these two Einstein here always meant business and I knew they would make me work my ass of I they needed it and I had a feeling it would happen. We were in action, which meant working harder than the rest. We went to our rooms had a bath and went to sleep because from tomorrow the difficulty was going to be raised from tough to ultimate hardcore.

It was 0440 hr and while others were getting ready for PE, we were already doing the super Spartan version of the hardcore mode. It barely made any sense, we were in a way the better than any other on the base but then we were in this shit,

"HEY EDWARD, TELL ME WHY ARE WE STRAPPED TO A TRUCK WITH THIS HARNESS AND RUNNING BEHIND IT WITH A TON OF WHEIGHT ON US!?"

It was Andrews and he was pretty Accurate when he said that, we were strapped to the very same truck we rode yesterday and were being made to run everywhere the truck could go, by the way it was a 4×4 all terrain and weather military spec. truck and that meant that it went literally every where. Over some mud dike, through the hangers, under some storage area. The only relief was that the truck was not supposed to exceed the speed of 70. Let me tell you a fact, that a human being's limit is to run at maximum at 60 and that too with no weight on them. You could see these amazing people at some international sports meet and they are called 'professional athlete's'. We were supposed to surpass them and at the same time carry like a ton of weight on our back!

"HEY SLOW DOWN RODRIGUEZ, SILVA, MAN GIVE US A BREAK!" I screamed at the top of my voice while I could see the smile Christ made while looking back at us. It went for 3 hours until we got a break. We were having some water and snack bar when some ladies went pass us. The thing is nugget's are separated by either being a brave lady or a plain maggot. So it was rare for us guy's to meet a girl, except when you tried anything funny.

"Look at those slackers, lets get away from here." And there was our first impression of us on ladies. We were too tired to even give an excuse. Well we I didn't have much time to think as Silva was here and got all three of us, me, Peter and Andrew by the collar and dragged us back for training. We were gonna cry as Silva had a grin on his face that made a resemblance to the devils. We were made to do different exercises all day long with only 5 minutes of break. We were back in the mess hall, exhausted.

"Hey look it is them, you know they literally owned the survival exercise"

"Yeah, they even continued while a storm was on the way"

Well at least a few here were a bit amazed by us. While the most of them were like

"They skipped the whole day like they are some celebrities"

"Yeah, they must be lazing around the whole day"

"They act like they know the instructor as they were their pals or some thing."

Well the last part was true, we knew the instructor, now they were like some friend's which are older than you and trust me that made our life even worse. The instructors literally didn't spare any thought as we were trained like we were gonna be dropped in hell or any similar place.

"Hey Edward you know where Hunter or Dunbar are?" the voice was literally like it came out of the dead, well I can't blame Peter for his condition. Well the question was bothering me too as we hadn't saw them since last night. I was sleeping like a log and I thought Aaron had already left. I shook my head in denial as I had no idea where they were. When we looked towards Andrew it was the same. I was sure we would have killed those two if the had a good day at the main office building chatting away with the officer's present there. Well I was dead wrong, those two came towards us dragging themselves, sat beside us, they took some coffee, splashed it at their faces and suddenly dropped on the table. We could only imagine what they had been through as their uniform was almost shredded and bruises all over them. We then simply grabbed them and took them to their rooms, Andrews and Peter carried James while I took Aaron with me. As soon as I got in the room, I locked the door behind me, dropped Aaron at his bed and jumped at my bed, instantly in the world of dream's.

As the time progressed, the 'Training' got harder, in just a week we were doing stuff that would make Spartans, the special forces of Osea amazed. The Spartans were the best of the best, their list of achievement was so long that it will take you a full week just to grasp what they had done and you will be thinking what they could do. You can be the best cadet in the army and still not qualify for the Spartans training program. What you needed was endurance of godlike amount. Soon we were doing Firearms training and close quater combat, none of them were in the normal program. Well the military was now pretty open to media especially during the training as it helped more recruits to easily sign up, well when the camera's came they were all pointed towards the normal training area.

"Hey Fordyce, we were supposed to be the 'Face of nugget's here at Hierirlark' what happened?" We were told we are supposed to become the best as we might be the very standard of Hierirlark's nugget's but now all those flimsy people were there on the news. I was devastated, made to train harder than the rest but got no acknowledgement, well a way to go wasn't it? There was someone doing 30 push ups and was treated like a top notch cadet.

"Hey Abernathy if you are so desperate to show your ugly face on TV you are free to go, we never stopped you" The joking comment had sarcasm and the irony that were unmeasurable, we were 'free to go' my ass, I knew if I were to leave midway they'll just increase the training. Nope I'll pass, plus all by buds were here so what was there to gain?

We were called what not by all of them so I hated all the nugget's there with a passion. They didn't even knew what we were going through. We had no personal time, just training, even lunch was just 5 minutes, literally and we barely even got that much time to take a bite until we were dragged back by our good friends and instructors. Well all of us didn't regret nothing as we really were happy despite the fact that our training surpassed even the unreal realms. The trio of Mark, Raphael and Christ really were training us so we could survive no matter what came in our way. Soon our basic training was going to end and we were going to start flying a real plane. Well the tough part was over as we all got accustomed to the training regime. We now had real respect for these instructor of ours.

All five of us were sitting in a corner of the mess hall as of right now as we had developed quite a reputation among other's. We now could eat the food here without much trouble but it was still bad. The Instructors walked in, well our demon friends were there too, well when we told them about the nickname we had for them and this place they were rolling over the floor laughing like crazy.

"Mount Dry Freeze?", "Full of Demons and Monsters?" Well they laughed while holding their stomach's. We were quite happy that they took no offence like good friends, now I came back from my own world to the mess hall from a friendly nudge by Andrews.

"Hey Abernathy stop dreaming about girls will you, I think this is important!" Well it was quite rude of him, I did think about girls but I was not a savage who though about them all the time.

"listen up Cadet's, now after enduring the 'Mount Dry Freezes' wrath and Enduring us 'Reincarnations of Demons and Monsters' I now congratulate you on completing your basic training." We were all hiding our faces while all the instructors looked at us with smiles on their face, the three 'instructors' in the back were trying hard not to laugh. The bastard's had told it to all the instructors here on the base. It was not like we were gonna be killed for this as the training was almost over. The laughter in the mess hall was like this cold mountain was now brimming with laugh. As the laughter died the instructor continued.

"There is gonna be a final training exercise as a combat training between the Osean air force cadets, the 'Tiny little ant men' Osean army cadets and the 'Gay people packed in a floating tin can' Osean Naval cadet's. We expect that we were harsher than god in shaping your sorry selves into a fighting machine. The training is going to be held right here around the mountain range's of Hierirlark so we have the advantage I wish you best of luck in you final exercise with us. You will be told more about it later"

Well all the nugget's were all brimming with excitement as they planned on how they were gonna kick ass. Well I was happy that now I could claim I am a true man to my parents. As we moved back to get some sleep we took a detour to meet up with our 'Demons'.

"Hey, was it so necessary to tell every single instructor here about that" Well it was James here and he, right of the bat threw the question at them.

"But it was so hilarious, all of the instructors with us were laughing until our stomach were about to blow up in the office and when the other got to know about it they..." Mark was holding his laughter while he gave the reply while Christ and Raphael were hiding behind his back trying to hold their back their giggling.

"Hey what do you mean by 'O-T-H-E-R-S'?" We had no clue what had happened.

"Yeah all the Instructor pilots, pilot's, Radio operator, basically every one on the base, boy you had to see the base commander..." Here mike trailed off and was unable to control his laughter as he burst out with Christ and Raphael, almost dropping to the ground. We were pretty annoyed by the fact that now we were well known in the whole base, not in a good way.

"Yo-You guys came... hahaha," It took 3 minutes for Mike to settle.

"You guys came here to ask about the exercise right, well don't worry, you'll do fine" There was nothing more to ask, it was useless as our instructor were barely able to hold back their laughter. So we decided to split and hit our bed.

"Hey Aaron what you think about the whole thing" Well I had a lot of question about it.

"Well Ed, I don't need to think, we'll do fine" The reply was short and I was fed up with thinking so I went to sleep.

The next day we were told the exercise would be held in two week and cadets would start coming in a week so we had a week for special training. After we were briefed we moved for our training and boy it was literally pushing the term 'insane' to new heights. Our instructors were there with smiles that made a very cold chill go down our spine, we already knew as we looked at each others that they had something in store for us.

"Boy's welcome to the 'Hell week at Mount Dry Freeze'" Well that sentence from Mark was enough to tell us about our fate. The week was literally like hell itself was here on a visit. Our already harsh exercise regime was now turned up to eleven. We took a glance at the 'others' training as we got a proper break, they were working hard, only if you compare to it with their past, It was still nothing compared to us and soon Mark was here to drag us away. We were doing every exercise possible every day. Soon it was the end of the painful week and the instructors had a lot of beer with them today.

"Well done guys you passed!" As we were given the beer bottles. "This week was to test that whatever we taught you was imprinted in you or not and you showed us that you really are something" Well I would be very satisfied to tie these three to a back of a truck and drive it all over the mountain but drinking beer with them was a better choice.

"From now on, just the simple work outs" We were happy that we didn't had to face any tough work... Wait wasn't the basics like around thousand's and thousand's of times working-out like a Spartan? Well whatever, I could do it now. Soon the cadets from all the branches started coming over, the base was getting livelier and more violent, all the guys were having a fight with all the other guys. The increase in instructors didn't help much but it still helped maintain law and order. We were specifically told not to be aggressive towards them by Christ and if a friend asks you politely enough then how can you refuse, well we didn't wanna mess with our instructors so we sat quiet. It was really a sight to behold, everyone hated every one and one day was like suddenly a war broke out in the mess hall.

"GET ME MORE OF THE GREEN GOO, I'M GONNA SHOVE IT IN THEIR FACE" someone screamed while he got a plate full of the 'green goo' on his face. We had just arrived in the hall after our training was over. We literally had our stomachs screaming as we had skipped lunch and breakfast both that day due to our instructors being extremely exited. There were plates filled with food and coffee all over the place, it was a total brawl, there were people having a one on one show down then some sizziling hot coffee on their head, then they grabbed some coffee themselves and together threw it at the one who had done the same to them.

"OH MY GOD I CAN'T FEEL MY FACE" someone shouted as he went down to the ground. "WE NEED A MEDIC HERE!" Someone shouted as he was catering to a person who had fainted after eating some of the food. Well it went on.

"Come on guys we ain't gonna get anything here" It was Peter and it broke my stomach hearing those words but he was right. We were then going to go towards our room when we met the some instructors heading towards us. Suddenly Mark out of nowhere came and called us.

"Hey wait up, I think we gonna need you morons" Well what was going on?, I had no idea but when I heard what was going to happen I just couldn't stop smiling. We just locked down the mess hall and went with the instructors to have something to eat. The instructors mess hall or the officers mess hall was pretty simple and they had the same meal as us, coffee and the 'green goo'. Well we were still happy as we digged in. There was only a TV there so it was still better than our mess hall.

"Just watch" Christ told as he pointed to the TV, the TV was pretty big but was showing static, soon all the instructors which we didn't bother noticing were also looking at the TV.

"Here we are, proudly presenting you the people, who in the future will defend Osea from any who dare to set their eye's on our country. BUT first lets take a look when you take all the different branches and lock them together in a single place." It was Mark speaking and suddenly the TV started showing the picture of the mess hall.

"GET'EM GUYS, LETS SHOW THEM WHO IS THE BOSS!"

"OH YEAH? BUT FIRST CLOSE YOUR FLY YOU MORON!" The person shouting before jumped down from the table and the place he was standing was filled with flying coffee and dinner. It was a total massacre. There was a camera installed there in the mess hall but I didn't knew they had a microphone too.

"HERE, HAVE SOME OF THIS BIO TOXIC WEAPON"

"HOW THE HELL DO YOU GUYS EAT THIS STUFF, WHAT ARE YOUR STOMACH LINED WITH, LEAD!?"

"HELL, WE HATE IT AND NOW YOU ARE GONNA TOO"

"WE ALRADY HATE THIS STUFF, ISN'T THERE A CONVENTION OR SOMETHING BANNING BIO WEAPON?"

"DON'T WORRY, WE HAVE ENOUGH OF THIS STUFF MADE DAILY TO ANNIHILATE THIS WORLD OVER AND OVER"

"I WANNA GO HOME"

"ME TOO"

"HEY SOMEBODY ORDERED SOME COFFEE"

"EVEN THE COFFEE TASTE LIKE MUD MIXED WITH WATER"

"HEY, DON'T YOU DARE MOCK THE COFFEE, IT IS THE ONLY THING THAT KEEPS YOU ALIVE HERE"

"HELL, SOME HAT WATER WOULD TASTE BETTER"

"WHY YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARD"

First thing, all the branches agreed the food here tasted like shit, which was actually not so appetizing even if you were starved for a day and made to work like crazy. Second was we had a pretty good time during dinner, watching the whole thing.

"HEY HUNTER, come here" It was Mark calling Aaron, well the guy simply went over where the instructor was standing.

"So Hunter, what do you think about the senario, what should be it's name?" If it was me, I would have frozen there and then.

After stroking his chin and observing the situation Aaron spoke up.

"The massacre at 'Mount Dry Freeze'!" Well, I admit it was funny but there was no sense necessary, Aaron came back and we all had our meal, you could see all the instructors in the hall talking while looking at us but we heard it as we were late because our instructors held us and were lucky to avoid the mess hall.

After finishing our meal we went straight to our room's, well the option of viewing the whole ordeal unfold at the mess hall was pretty appeasing but we were surrounded by a ton of instructors talking about us and that made us uncomfortable.

"Listen up, the exercise is day after tomorrow so we need to be at our best, so let's hit the bed and be prepared for tomorrow, by the way we will have theory lessons tomorrow so relax" James was quite happy when he broke the news.

Well we couldn't agree more and broke up for the day. Our plan was to get up at 4 and we really were relaxing with the small relief time we had. Well I can't wait for tomorrow, a real holiday in a while.


	6. A Holiday

**A Holiday at last**

It was 4 in the morning, I got up from my bed and looked outside the rooms window. The sky was still dark and filled with beautiful and shining stars like they were a blanket covering the whole earth under it. I didn't notice this beautiful breath taking view before, not like it was my first day here, I had been here long enough. The thing was that there were 'Demons' here that would not give your mind a second to wander away, if anyone disagrees with me he is more than welcome to personally come here and experience the phenomena first hand. I got up and saw my room mate, who usually is up before me, still sleeping like a baby. I had the pleasure of waking him today and started thinking way's of waking him like pulling the blanket, splashing some water and the standard 'shake em' and 'wake em'. Well I was inching closer by the second while thinking what to do, suddenly Aaron woke up and greeted me in a lazy manner.

"Yawn..., Good morning Ed, you are up early today." And there went all my enthusiasm, I suddenly had an urge to get back to my bed and go to sleep so Aaron could wake me. I was a fool in trying to defy the law of universe by waking my room mate.

"Yeah, Morning Aaron" With the reply I was heading towards the bathroom to freshen up. Today I took a long bath by 5 minutes and enjoyed it to the fullest. Usually I just splash some water and dress up as here at Hierirlark, the instructor's don't give you time for anything. Well if they gave time, it was to repent to god for any sins you committed as you were gonna be on a day visit to afterlife. Soon both me and Aaron were ready and we went out, with no place in mind to go.

"Hey Ed, um..., where do we get the coffee." It was a good question. As the mess hall was, in a mess, so we had no place to get our morning coffee. We then talked some alternative but the best we could come up with was asking the devil's trio to arrange for some coffee. We walked aimlessly for a bit until we met James and Andrew.

"Hey morning Egg head, morning Aaron" Andrew was a pretty sharp person and by that I mean he had a remark for almost every situation and usually passed them on Peter. Well Aaron was an exception, there was no reason to mess around with him as he was always pretty docile and only time he was angry was with James and that too was pretty brief. There was no time when Aaron is provoked so it feels really bad messing around with him.

"Morning Andy Pants and James" well my remark was nothing sharp but it was a remark. I asked where was Peter but nobody had any idea. We thought we'll find him later, coffee was more important right now. We then talked about our idea to meet with our instructor's for coffee and the reply was.

"I don't care if we need to invade Belka to get coffee, let's go already!" The first impression I had of James was he was some kind of 'Spoon-Fed-Arrogant-Noble' but once I got to know him, I found that he was actually pretty fun to be with, would crack some joke's once in a while but usually took matters seriously.

"Yeah and while were at it we might go and invade Ustio and might get a chance to have the coffee with the demon lord himself." It was Aaron, talking with him would make you believe that he was the most innocent soul here and that was pretty true but he also preferred to be a sarcastic person once in a while. We chatted like this all the way until we reached the office area. It was decided that we would go straight to the mess hall and grab some coffee. On any other fine day we would not dare think of coming here but today, for coffee we will base jump mountains while back flipping, without parachute. As we neared the mess hall we could hear the instructors laughing but with their voice was Peters voice mixed. We hurried there and found our guy sitting their with coffee in hand and laughing along with instructors from all the branches. We greeted him with very dangerous stare and as soon as he saw us he got up and brought us 4 cup's of coffee. As soon as we got our coffee we focused on other things and were about to die from fits of laughter.

"WHY DON'T YOU DIE, THIS GOO COULD KILL A WHOLE DAMN COUNTRY'S POPULATION ALONE"

"WE ATE THAT STUFF FOR ABOUT WHOLE GOD-DAMN BASIC TRAINING, WE NOW CAN SURVIVE A NUCLEAR BLAST YOU MORONS, HERE HAVE SOME"

"NOOOOO, I NEED HELP, GOD WHY DID YOU LET THIS STUFF EXIST?"

"WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF GREEN GOO"

"THE COFFEE IS FINISHED, WHAT DO WE DO NOW?"

"WE ARE DOOMED, WHO HAD THE IDEA TO THROW THE COFFEE"

"IT WAS YOU, YOU MORON"

"OH! YEAH BUT YOU THEN THREW IT LIKE THERE WAS NO TOMORROW"

We now knew why the instructors and Peter were laughing like crazy, the 'Mess Hall Massacre at Mount Dry Freeze' was not over yet, these guys went all night and now today they were less than tired. We got to know the various quote that were made during the night like 'I'm gonna light you on fire with this coffee' and 'Time for a green goo melt down'. The list went on, there was literally a list where the instructors wrote all the lines. We had quite a fun time around with the instructors and found that they were harsh for our own good. We were having fun and laugh like there was no end then suddenly it all died. We were scared that the instructors were gonna pull a stunt on us but then we were literally 'S-T-U-N-N-E-D'.

"Hey boys we need a favor from you" A favor, from us? All five of us were stunned when we heard the words but then the instructor's continued.

"Well during the exercise please take care of our 'nuggets', will you?"

"Yeah, we instructors might be deployed there but still watch out for our little morons will you?"

"We can count on the 'Snow Badgers', can we?"

We were literally sitting there with stupid looks on our face but then the situation was explained to us. The instructors were confident that their trainees were top of the line but they were still like doting parents worrying over their kids. We had proved ourselves to them in our survival stunt on the first exercise that we were more than capable of handling ourselves in the exercise and therefore we were being relied on to ensure the safety of all the participants from different branches. Even our instructors gave us the hint. So we did what was the most sane thing we could, we struck our chest once with our fist and assured all instructors present here about the safety of the participants. There were a whole wing that was ready to mobilize if anyone was injured on the mountain which was more than reliable but even then we were being asked to be on a look out. Now I, no we were filled with pride that we endured the demon trio of Mark, Rodriguez and Christ so today we can with full pride and strength backing it are saying yes to their request.

We then continued to enjoy our coffee and enjoy the scene at mess hall until like little kids tired after playing all of the trainees locked there went to sleep. Well they didn't even bother to break open the door, after they found that it was locked they were already too tired to do anything. Even the instructors decided that it was OK to leave all of them locked there, sleeping together despite fighting all night with each other. We had our breakfast and started arguing on what to do.

"Let's call it a day and laze around." Peter was lethargic as he was up early and he had been enjoying himself here in the officers mess hall. I was pretty sure that we were gonna have fun today, plus we couldn't just laze around after we had developed a 'Do-something-useful' syndrome. After Peter's idea was ruled out it was James.

"Lets have a drill prac..."

"NO"

The guy didn't had time to complete his sentence as he was cut off by me, Peter and Andrew together in unison. We had a day off and we weren't gonna waste it by doing drill or anything dumb.

"Hey Aaron what do you think we should do today" It was Andrew who had carelessly passed the baton to Aaron.

"Lets play soccer!" The idea sounded good so all of us voted in. Soon we arranged for a football from the faculty and went to the grounds. We were in pretty high spirits as we were really lucky to not be stuck with everyone else sleeping. We were pretty happy until Peter raised a question.

"Hey, why are the instructors coming with us." Yes the instructors had heard our idea and also voted in and it was no longer our choice. Well there was no problem as the ground was humongous and we could probably take more players than in a normal game. It was not going to be a normal game as you could tell by looking at the instructors body that they were packing quite some power but the same could be said for us. We were here at the grounds when the devils trio came along.

"Hey we want in!" It was Christ and we had no objections. After making a count we had 30 players. We had James, Aaron and Mark on one side while the rest of us were on the other team. The teams were of 15 each, all members playing on the field, team Aaron James and Mark was blue while our was green. Soon the game started.

"WATCH OUT AS THE ROAD RUNNER IS COMING!" It was peters screaming as he had the ball which was soon taken by a player from blue team.

"YOU MORON THIS IS A FIELD NOT A ROAD!" It was Andrews screaming at Peter as he chased the ball.

"YOU'RE TOO EARLY TO GET THE BALL FROM ME!" with the reply and a well played manoeuvre, the blue player had fooled Andrews and passed the ball to another player. The ball was getting close to the quarter line as Rodriguez came to the rescue and stole the ball effortlessly.

"HEY EDWARD GET IN THE GAME!" It was a remark for me which was soon followed by a pass. I was just behind the half line as I got the ball, well there was only one blue player here so it was easy as I crossed him and was making a run for the goal post, Aaron was the goal keeper, which was a good idea as he was pretty huge and fast so he will be able to cover the goal post the best. The blue player I had crossed was gaining on me fast so I plotted a pass to another green player. The blue player had me but I was able to make the pass. While the blue player was thinking about chasing the ball I was still running towards the goal post. Soon the green player with the ball was getting cornered as he passed the ball to me.

"WAKE UP ABERNATHY, WE ARE PLAYING A GAME AND NOT DAY DREAMING YOU FOOL" It was Mark as he intercepted the pass and then gave the ball to James. As Mark was sprinting back I saw James cross three green player of our team, he was good and was covering quite some distance. James was playing pretty well but he was soon going to be surrounded.

"OK, I GOT HIM GUYS" Peter was quite enthusiastic until he was fooled as the ball was already in some other blue team's possession.

"WE NEED THE BALL NOT THE PLAYER YOU MORON"

It was Andrews as he was being stained by giving chase to the blue player with the ball.

"WHAT IF IT WAS A HOT GIRL" Peter tried to retort back as he also joined in the chase.

"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN BOTH OF THEM" All the player's were laughing as we were really enjoying the game. A green player of our team had taken the ball and passed it towards Christ.

"SCORE A GOAL FOR ME" The player was almost out of breath as he had to deal with two blue players chasing him.

"WILL DO BROTHER" Christ said as he started his run towards the goal post. He had crossed the half line and crossed three blue players and James along the way, the coast looked clear as Me and Rodriguez were running along the wing to cross the 4 remaining defenders. It was not easy but we three, passing back and forth had crossed the defense line. We didn't have much time before the defender's caught up and made it near impossible to score. I had the ball and I took the shot. I was pretty confident that it would go in as Aaron had left some gap in his stance but to my surprise as like Aaron had predicted it, he suddenly moved in between the trajectory of the ball. The ball was going high so Aaron couldn't properly grasp it. There was very little margin of error as if the shot was too high, it would miss the goal and I would be showered with curses and if it was too low Aaron would easily get it. The shot rebounded and now Christ had the ball, the defenders were now on us and we really needed to pull this one as we didn't knew when will the next opportunity come. Christ then rushed towards the goal trying to go in solo, Aaron changed his position and stance to defend best, Suddenly Christ turned as to pass the ball to me, well the blue team took notice and I was covered in an instant. Well it turned out it was a bluff as the ball went to Rodriguez on the opposite side and he then took the shot, to our surprise Aaron was already there and defended the goal but the ball came to me and I decided to take the shot but changed my mind as I thought of a trick and passed the ball to Christ behind me. Aaron tried his best and he almost diverted the ball up and away from the goal but he was a bit late as he was crouching to defend against my shoot. The ball went in and it was a score for our team.

"HELL YEAH BOYS WE DID IT"

"YEAH, WE GOT THE LEAD NOW"

"LETS KEEP IT UP"

There were shouts here and there from our green team as we had made a goal.

"Don't worry chief, you did pretty good out there." It was Mark and he was giving a well deserved appreciation to Aaron. We had made quite an offensive and if it was any other guy, I was pretty sure we could have scored with the first shot.

"NOW LET'ER RIP GUYS, WE CAN'T LET THEM FLY ON CLOUD 9 FOREVER!". It was Mark shouting like his blood was on fire

"WATCH OUT ABERNATHY, MARK'S GONNA PULL SOMETHING!" Suddenly Rodriguez warned.

Well I was confident that it will be fine and it was my undoing, Mark proceeded to cross every one on the way. He even crossed two of his own team member as they were in the way and just like that he was at the goal post and he scored, all alone.

"HEY MARK THATS CALLED CHEATING"

"YEAH, YOU CAN'T SUDDENLY PUT IN CHEAT CODE IF YOU ARE LOOSING THE CAME"

It was Andrew and Peter as they commented on the Marks play.

It was pretty idiotic but it felt pretty true, Mark had literally crossed the whole damn field alone and scored, ALONE. From then on the game had gotten a bit 'slow', it was after half time. We were running all over the field like crazy, while our green team's offence was strong blue teams goal keeper had become a monster. That guy did a back flip to stop a goal and then a handstand to not only stop the second goal but shoot it back in the field beyond the half-line, and it lead to a goal. Soon everyone was crossing everyone and shouting like madmen and we were getting the fact that the game was in a stalemate. Then we saw Aaron discussing something with Mark, James and other blue team members and soon all their face's had grins like they were some kids who had decided on a prank.

Soon the ball was with James who bought it till the half line and passed it to Mark. Mark had bought the ball till the goal post but the game was now in a dead-lock, we were careful about the discussion we had seen before but then all the blue team did was delay. Soon there was a man for a man and the passing became more intense. Over the head, under the legs, back pass and all the tricks were being pulled but it was only a matter of time before the ball was in our possession. Then the ball flew towards the goal, we though that they had messed up and the ball was now going to be in our goal keepers hand. I then turned to see the passer, it was Mark and he had a huge grin on his face, it was same for James and all the other team members. I realised why as I saw Aaron pop out of nowhere and score a goal with a header . Then it was full time and blue team was the winner. Usually you would have a lot of cheering and booing but right now we all were so tired that we just sat on the ground.

"I NEED WATER"

"SAME HERE"

"YEAH, CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE GET SOME WATER."

We were all thirsty as we had been playing non-stop after half time. Well it wasn't long that Mark and Aaron went and got the five 10 liter water bottle on a truck with some glasses. As soon as the truck stopped the water went down like we were facing a drought. Soon 4 bottles were empty and now like there was a delay everyone sprang into celebrations.

"JUST WHAT I NEEDED, SOME WATER AND THE SAD FACES OF LOOSER"

"HEY IT WAS YOUR GOAL KEEPER THAT HELPED YOU WIN"

"YEAH IF IT WAS ANYONE ELSE YOU WOULD BE CRYING FOR MOMMY RIGHT NOW"

"OH SHUT IT LOOSER."

There was some arguments until a sudden crises hit us, our bladders were saying they were overloaded and the nearest bathroom was a light year away, Aaron and Mark knew what was going on as the ran towards the truck, taking the driver seat and passenger sear respectively. Well there was nothing to wait for as I ran for the truck. Soon James, Peter and Andrews found what was going in my head as they also started running behind me and soon all the players on the field were running behind me.

"HEY IF YOU RAN THAT FAST WE COULD HAVE WON YOU KNOW?" It was an attempt on slowing the horde catching up on me.

"WHO CARES, GET OUT OF THE WAY" was the joint reply of all. Soon the small truck was loaded with 28 people on its back, no one wanted to risk loosing the ride so the passenger and the driver were quite free and no one could crawl through the back window as of right now.

"HEY AARON, HURRY UP WILL YOU" It was Peters as he was in a tight spot.

"YEAH, PLEASE HURRY" even Christ was here with us.

"DON'T WORRY CHRIST, BLADDER RESCUE FORCE WILL SAVE YOU SO HANG ON!" Mark and Aaron were quite happy as they gave the remark, I know that these guys had already done their business as they knew this was gonna happen. Well soon the 'Bladder rescue force' had saved us and we all went back to our room to change and grab a break for two hours. It was only 9 in the morning and we had plenty of time. We decided to meet back in the Officers mess hall and check on the sleeping beauties.

As I was going back to my room, I was pretty mad on Aaron and by that I meant I dropped all the thing's in my mind on him.

"Hey are you some professional Goalkeeper and more importantly you could have called me when you know a disaster was gonna happen?"

I went on as all Aaron did was smile and giggle. Soon we were in our beds after taking bath to get rid of all the smell on us. We were asleep even before we could count till 5.

* * *

Soon we got up and started going back to the officers mess hall, we had lost 6 instructors due to various reasons like exhaustion and sleeping. As we had gathered there we were chatting happily but the TV was off as it had been running the whole night and there was nothing to show from the land od still sleeping beauties. We chatted for about 10 minutes then someone had an idea.

"Lets go check the 'nuggets'!" and voila we were in no time making plan's on how to check on them. Right now we were not instructors and nuggets but a few normal people with very evil logic at work, Aaron was sitting in a corner due to various reasons like him not being evil enough to qualify in this operation.

"SOME ONE GO GET SOME PERMANENT MARKERS"

"WHILE YOU'RE AT IT GET SOME COLORED ONE TOO"

"GO GET SOME TAPE"

"WE NEED SOME COSTUMES"

"HELL, GO GET ANYTHING YOU CAN GRAB!"

The central group was shouting as all others not involved were running right and left all over the base, A few instructors went to the other side or the female side of the base and got some lipstick, some cosmetics and lingerie, there were screams afterwards that told that they had forgot to ask, to which we all smiled. The thing was the male training area and female training area were separate and because of that we could have a bombing raid on our side and yet the other side was un-faised. Soon we had costumes of a 'bat' looking person, a 'spider' like person, bunny costume, all that you could think of. As I brought some stuff over in the mess hall there was soon a disaster, the base commander had walked in. We were sure that most of the personnel had their meal and no one was going to come here. The commander just waltzed in and soon was sitting with the central group. It had James and Mark who together explained what was going on, to which we got two things, a thumbs up and

"Send the recording to my office" And soon the base commander was a benefactor in the operation.

"HEY WHATS THE HOLD UP, HURRY WE NEED TO GET TO THE SLEEPING BEAUTY LAND WITH THIS STUFF."

It was Mark and he was pretty accurate when he said that. We were back in our scramble as we started running and collided with each other. Soon it was 11:30, we got most off the stuff on the truck but the rest had to be carried on hand. We marched near the mess hall and then all the doors were opened. Two instructors went ahead to make sure that all the nuggets were not in a position to wake up, both came back smiling and operation '**E**very **V**illain is an **I**nstructor **L**aughing' of simply **E.V.I.L., ** were soon unloading the recording equipment into the hall. The camera and the microphone installed was shut off , they were good but they only gave a high angle view so sometimes you missed a good part. And soon we were recording, I tell you that was the most fun time here. Dressing the most arrogant sleeping trainees here in princess clothes and they having tea with a voice over that almost made me faint laughing, check. Dressing some random person as a superhero who dived in the pile of green goo to save someone, Yucky but check. Making their faces full with crazy tattoos and graffiti, check, was the marker permanent, double check. Making them sing by playing a song like 'come on dolly lets go party', 'one way, one thing' and more by moving their jaw while the instructors made other sleeping beauties dance, check. Boy we had fun like never before. For the finisher we had the 'Harkem shake' and that was the end because any more and we would have died laughing. We got out of the mess hall and started sorting things up, the recording equipment went to be processed, the costume was sorted the stationary was taken back where it belonged, we were pretty sure all would be taking a nice break and talking how fun it was but every one was in a hurry. I got to Mark and asked what was going on.

"YOU MORON THE BASE COMMANDER CALLED SAYING THE GIRLS ARE COMING FOR US" In that line a sudden fact hit me like a storm out of nowhere. There were instructors who had taken stuff like lipstick, cosmetics and lingerie without permission, the girls were soon gonna be on the search for their stuff. We didn't use the lingerie for the sake of pride of the victims but even if we told all the stuff to the girls it wasn't gonna help. If it weren't for the base commander we would have been caught long ago but now the time was ticking and I needed a place to hide, A place no one knew, my room? No the girls would be sure to check them all and despite the fact we were away from the rest the chances were slim, the office area, the girls had been there and there was a chance that they were gonna be there on the look-out. As I was trying to run my brain to full capacity and all around me was chaos, I saw Aaron walk in. We were all surprised as when he picked up all the cosmetics, lipstick and lingerie, put them on the truck and went off, problem solved, was he a god or something, hearing the distressful pleas and rushing to save us. Well I was happy that my room mate had taken care of the stuff. Soon everyone was relaxed as we took a breather. We were safe so we started chatting how fun it was to pull off operation EVIL and who was Aaron, I sat quiet as I knew if Aaron was in my place, which will never happen, he would have also stayed shut. Soon Mark stood up and said,

"CHEERS FOR THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, A GOALKEEPER WHO SAVED OUR ASSES TODAY."

Mark knew who the unknown soldier was but we all played along.

"CHEERS"

"YEAH"

"OUR SAVIOR"

We were all having fun and we went back to the Officers mess hall after sorting stuff out. We chatted non-stop about every thing and then it was lunch, we still decided to stay put and chat and it was 5:30 in the evening, boy I was never gonna forget this day. Then suddenly the commander burst in.

"HEY LISTEN UP IT IS SERIOUS" He was pretty serious looking when he burst in like we had a war.

"OH YOU GOT THE VIDEO COMMANDER?" It was Rodriguez and we all giggled a bit remembering our afternoon.

"YEAH IT WAS AWESOME, WHEN YOU GUYS..."

"WAIT IT WAS GOOD BUT THAT IS NOT THE MATTER" We were quite baffled when he told us

"THE GUY THAT WENT WITH THE TRUCK LOAD OF WOMEN'S STUFF INTO THE OTHER SIDE HAS NOT RETURNED YET!"

Yes he was right, Aaron went with a truck load of women's stuff but he was yet to return. Right now Mark, Rodriguez, Christ, James, Andrew, Peter and me were staring each other like idiots.

The question, Where is Aaron?


	7. A dear friend is lost, find him Damn-it!

**A Dear Friend is Lost, Find Him Damn-It!**

We were sitting in a circle with all the attention towards the base commander. Just today we had a ton of fun by playing soccer and pulling a prank on all the sleeping and now suddenly we had a crises on our hand!

"Hey Clegg, calm down and tell us what happened." It was Mark and he looked worried as a trainee had disappeared and that too in uncharted territories. It was same for all present here. The base commander was fine by being called with his last name without any suffix or prefix. Then he started.

"Well as you were having fun in the mess hall with operation E.V.I.L., the girls barged in the office and literally tore down the door from its hinges. The were demanding to know, where were you guys!, I played dumb and asked what was going on and they told, you know that some guys had barged in and taken their stuff. I said there was a commotion in the mess hall yesterday and today was a day off for all the guys. Hell, I took a 4 hour lecture on duty, regularity and all that you can think of before I could say that the day was off to give cadets time to familiarize with each other, they bought it but still the lecture continued, God even my mother didn't scold me that much and I am the most superior ranking person here! I told that it must be a prank but the Instructor's and the nuggets were insistent that I knew, I knew but I would have been buried alive if they found out so then I told that there was a soccer game between the instructors and 'nuggets' in the evening from my memory accounts, It wasn't a lie and it came the fastest to my mind and said it were probably the few combo of instructor and nugget's that did it." The base commander took a break to catch his breath as Christ replied.

"You sure were fast to sell us" It was the same sentiment that all of us sitting here had that dispute the base commander being a part of it.

"Hey the Instructors might get away but we'll be surely grilled alive, commander couldn't you have been more vague while selling us out!" It was Peter and this time he was right, as the things would clear up two facts would come out, a. All the cadets were knocked out and locked in the mess hall and b. We were the only ones out, so we were in real trouble and from the tone of base commander, it was gonna get even worse.

"Hell boy, you would have sold me out if you were in my place, they were so fierce, my god I wanted to run towards the bomb shelter, dig a hole under it and hide for a few years. And you morons who stole the stuff, even the instructors stuff was mixed in, and they took it very personally, I was buying as much time as I could until some one in the back called the one's in the front and soon my office was vacant, I was stunned from all the sudden out burst and argument but then suddenly took out my phone and called Mark. I warned you guys and threw my phone in the fish tank as I looked for what had happened in the computer in my office, I was browsing through the camera feed as I saw the girls on one side talking to a nugget on the other side, there was only visual feed and I ain't a ninja so I couldn't grasp a thing in the conversation except when the boy suddenly walked away and all the girls standing there moved aside to give the guy some space, Hell the scene was like the some god had split a whole ocean filled with angry sharks. I followed him through the camera feed and he was coming towards you guys, he looked like he wanted to speak but then just grabbed all the stuff loaded it in the truck and went where the girls were. I saw that the stuff was all lipstick, cosmetics and lingerie I thought it was an event of self sacrifice, I thought of giving this guy a medal as he got down and started talking, He was in-form so it must be an instructor he was talking to and boy he had some tricks up his sleeve as he was still standing, If it was me or any of us for that matter we would have been buried alive right there and then. After talking for a minute he got in the truck with the Instructor, I couldn't see who it was and he drove right into no man's land. I only go there once a month to inspect as there, the people didn't like any man roaming around even if it was the damn base commander!, That's why you usually see me roaming here. Then I thought it was fine and took a breather and went to my work, I got some nails and plank to fix the broken door and it took me 3 hours to do it, well I could have asked anybody else but I needed to do something to calm my nerves. I kept an eye on the monitor to see a truck rolling our but even after I was done the guy didn't came back, Well I didn't see who he was as in the screen he looked like an ant, I really need to update all the surveillance here on the base!. Now as soon as I took notice I scrambled and came straight here." The commander finished what he had to say and took some water that was in the cup sitting in front of him.

"Can't you just walk in and bring him out?" It was an instructor sitting in the back and his suggestion had some sense to it, there was nothing wrong with the base commander coming in to check things out and finding a person in trouble and hauling that said person's ass back to safety. I knew Aaron and he must have offered to drive the truck till the dorms and from his nature anyone can tell he had no sense of malice in his word's. Well being a good guy is all fine and dandy but it has no use if it gets you into trouble, we thought we were being paranoid but then the base commander cleared things up.

"The training there is like you were gonna meet the devil himself, well I might be over exaggerating but it is true. To say that one girl can take 2 normal nuggets here at once and me going there, no way, they are already suspicious of me."

We were scared, not because of the fact that the girls were like super strong but from the fact that we were reminded our training. After we got to know more we found out that their normal training were like the hardcore punishment for being late, it was not anything to compare with what we had been through but as far as anyone know Aaron, he will not harm a girl, ever, and it came to my notice that he usually avoid conversation if he isn't with us so he might not be a socially active person like me. Girl's training might be harder because it is usually like an untrue urban legend, that women were weaker then men, it was quite the opposite actually, you could always see your mother scolding your father from time to time to prove my point. Soon it was Mark who spoke

"And it's gotten dark damn it!"

Well I had a question and it was pretty simple.

"Hey Mark, what happens when it gets dark?"

To the question Mark just spoke in a cold tone.

"The security is pretty tight during the day but when it gets dark all hell breaks loose, The gate barriers are doubled, guard dogs unleashed and IR and Motion sensor equipment activates. It is even said that there are Ack-Ack present there because some nugget decided that if he couldn't, a camera sure could fly in the base. There is also a rumor that a bird was shot down because it hadn't cleared itself with the tower and lost in the mountains. Hell I saw a fully armed to teeth with 20. cal gun armored personnel 4 wheel truck go in with fully equipped female personnel, it is even said that there is a full female platoon guarding the area."

Mark had a grin on his face and his speech calmed all of us present there but still we were worried about our friend which was known as the 'huge impregnable and indefatigable wall before the damn goal post' with the instructors. We then started forming a plan, the rest were worried, but those who knew what we had been through, could say that we could survive an Armageddon, Ragnarok and any apocalypse, combined!

We then started forming a plan for the operation "Saving Private Aaron" or Operation S.P.A. and when would we have another chance to snoop around the girl's room, to save our friend of course and not to have fun that was the obvious truth. Soon we were all at work, It was 6 in the evening and we were running everywhere, we complained that it was too cold out there but still did our work. Mark, Rodriguez and Christ were sitting with base commander and formulating a plan as we got the necessary supplies like torch, IR camera, Recording equipment, E.M.P. grenades, Laser pointer, ropes, arc wielders and what not. Soon every one was assembled and we were now gonna be briefed, we all took our seats as a crudely drawn map was put up for display. It was the base commander who was speaking in a microphone.

"OK listen up people, first things first, All the blame related to this incident will go on to the nuggets, from the theft in the afternoon to operation S.P.A. is their fault and not the instructors despite it obviously being some of the instructors fault."

There were cheers all around as instructors, whether guilty or not were celebrating the shifting of blame. Obviously we nuggets had complain but not only we were out numbered but also all of them were instructors so there was no chance of an argument, let alone winning it. So the briefing continued.

"And if the nuggets come out clean despite the odds, the operation E.V.I.L. is also their fault, despite it being the instructors dragging them along." The cheers were pretty deafening now but they didn't matter as the four of us, namely James, Peter, Andrew and me Edward were gonna cry if this escalated any further.

"To Add to it, operation S.P.A. will be carried by nuggets and nuggets alone as we cannot risk instructors being caught, if the operation is busted, the operation will be the sole effort of nuggets and them alone and they will face harsh results from the other side and if they survive we will discipline them further." There it was, the four of us really were crying like kids and you couldn't even hear us was because the cheering could be heard even in Belka and Ustio by now. To add injury on an injury and insult to top it off, it was literally pushing the thresh hold of the term called 'humanity'. We were gonna be responsible for both the events with girls and boys and take all the heat and on top of that if we messed up the instructors were gonna board the 'Making-Sure-You-Reach-To-Hell-Safe-And-Sound' train. Soon after we had stopped crying the base commander continued.

"The nuggets are going to be dropped here and the drop personnel will retreat, from here the nuggets are going to infiltrate the area and start a search for our missing person call-sign 'Goalkeeper', as soon as we find the person the infiltration team will radio in the base where the Base Commander, that's me, call-sign 'Boss' is gonna be on stand-by. As soon as I get the location of 'Goalkeeper' I am gonna go in on a 'Faculty-Check', I cannot afford to go in blind as the other faction is suspicious of my involvement with the previous events. After the infiltration team confirms that the package is secure they are gonna proceed to the secondary objective that is to recon the entire area in order to help have some data for further missions. If the infiltration team feels it is too hot they can bug out but that option is not on the table. The infiltration team is going to be fitted with a real-time video broadcasting system that will give live feed to the base so there is no need to worry if the team is caught. That is all, if any question, feel free to not ask them."

The only comfort we had was our devils trio face palming themselves over the stupidity of the whole thing. It was 1900 now so there was little time to loose as the darker it gets, more the security and more the danger. As I was checking my equipment I asked Mark who was standing near me.

"Hey Mark, what you said about the base on that side, is it true." I knew it was a stupid question but right now very little made sense so I went ahead.

"Only the IR and Motion sensors were a joke but the patrol and armored vehicle weren't, there was an AA gun I saw there but it was probably for base defense."

I was pretty surprised but I still had one last question.

"How old is the info" it was reliable that was for sure but how old was it?

"I saw it when I came at the base, about a week before you."

I had other questions that I wanted to ask but right now my brain was busy dealing with the new information. There was an AA gun but I don't think it was gonna be used against us but the armored vehicle and the patrol was a problem and there was a high chance that we would be considered as intruders and maybe even shot on sight! Well there was no time as we were stowed on the 4x4 truck which every one rode after the soccer game and thrown just outside the perimeter fence. We then got to work, Peter and James used wire cutter to make a hole in fence big enough for a person to pass through, As we got in we used some tape to put the fence back together, this was very helpful as without a proper close look, no one could tell there was a breech but if needed, we could just burst through and the fence will open smoothly. The entry point was behind a building so we had ample of cover. Currently we were on the basic training frequency but I gave a signal to turn to frequency 127.12, the same Aaron gave me during our first exercise.

"Hey guys I wanna discuss something"

The first to reply was James "I already disabled the recording equipment on our way here, don't worry we got it covered. Well I saw him fiddle with the camera but I didn't knew he was thinking the same we three were. As we switched back to the basic training frequency, which was 100.00, we heard a torrent of question.

"This is base command to infiltration team, hurry up and check your equipment you morons, there is no feed coming in." This was make shift recording and broadcast system and not the one special forces used so there was no guarantee that it is fail-safe, so grudgingly the base gave the go ahead for the mission as the secondary objective was still there and they could just interrogate if they had to, to get any useful info. As the map made by the base commander was no where near useful determining where Aaron was we started guessing. We told the base command that we were switching to another frequency and we had no opposition as they were there for name sake only and their interest was, lets say lower than before.

"There are the living quarters"

"Check"

"There are the bathroom's"

"Check"

Right now Andrew was spotting and guessing which building was which and James was crossing them out on the map on his hand. We were sure to avoid any useless encounter with anyone. I heard a faint noise and looked up in the sky but it was too dark for me to notice anything. Soon we guessed that it was going to be the store room, well it was very low on the list of 'Places-To-Hold-Some-One'... Or it was high depending on your point of view but still we went in. Andrew was peaking out the corner when he said

"The Coast is clear"

As soon as I had heard those word's on my radio, I rushed for the next building, I was the point man so it was my job to alert my friends if anything came up, As all five of us came behind the building we crouched and discussed our stance in the situation. It was 1930 Hr and we were just in, our time-frame of infiltration was till 2100 or 9 'O' clock as a minute beyond that would be tough as most of the base activity will die down and we will need to be extra slow and quiet. We were ready to face the bone chilling cold and stay out here whole night if we had to! Suddenly Andrew spoke in the radio.

"Get down, a patrol is coming." We waited for about 20 minutes before the patrol was gone. We listened to their talks to get some info where Aaron was. What we found out was that the patrol was made up of the 'nuggets' stationed here and from their talks we found that they were extra alert tonight. The patrol was 'beefed-up' because the trainees from other branches also joined the patrol as a part of a 'night walk'. Till now there was nothing to notice but there was a generator working on the other side of the building, to be more accurate it was positioned between those two buildings but not in line with them, they formed a triangle if you see it as a figure with the generator being on the top vertex and the building on the bottom two. We soon moved cover to cover behind the next building. It was a good thing that most of the buildings were placed near the fence, this made moving easier.

As we were in the position Peter warned us about something that made us panic.

"A patrol is coming and it looks like they are gonna come near the fence." Well it was true as right now the moon was just above the horizon but the building obstructed the view but if you got close to the fence line, you could see the moon, the sad thing was we were near that very fence.

While we were panicking I thought of some thing, as soon as the patrol arrived near the building I rushed around without making any noise, Primed an E.M.P. grenade and threw it, it landed straight at the generator and I was confident enough that it would land where I wanted it to, the next thing I did was call the others on the radio after falling back.

"Move out the other side on my mark, 5, 4, 3,..." As I counted, my friends came where I was and there were no question as we had no time.

"...2, 1, go!" As soon as I gave the signal the grenade did its work, the generator was down and the lights went out, we rushed to the next building as soon as I gave the word, i got three pat on the back for my stunt. There were screams of girls at the sudden light out and the generator was kicked and banged until it came back to life. We didn't wait to conform as what had happened after as we went to the next building, the store room was the next building, it was big but not huge, the definition 'store house' fitted better but still it was a store room. We soon went behind the store room as we saw the coast was clear. We formed up on the two windows in the back of the store room and prepped for infiltration, James and me crouched on our knees and hand while Peter and Andrews got on our back crouching on their knees with a flash light in their hand.

"Going in 3, 2, 1, Hit it" It was Andrew and he smashed the window with his torch, same was for Peter and they broke in and we heard their call on the radio.

"Clear"

"Clear"

We didn't take anything even near to non-lethal, if we were caught it was, lets say we could live through it and hopefully tell our tale. We soon searched the whole place but we didn't find goalkeeper. It was 2100 by now, we took too much time near the generator because of the patrol there. Soon the Hierirlark base was going to be quiet and we needed some distraction. So we changed our frequency back to 100.00 and called in a favor.

"This is infiltration team to boss we need a favor."

"This is boss, what you need?"

"This is infiltration team, we need a distraction, how about a 'fly'?"

"A 'fly' is already on the way out, will redirect, E.T.A. 5 minutes."

"Infiltration team, 5 minutes, copy, over and out"

We stayed put for five minutes until our 'fly' came here. Soon the countdown began, it was James doing the honours.

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO!"

I ran as fast as I could when I got the word, as soon as I put my first step outside there was a deafening roar above me, it was a jet but I didn't bother looking as I ran as fast as i could and reached the mess hall which was right in-front of us. As we made sure that all of us were behind cover we got back on the radio.

"This is Infiltration team, the 'fly' did its job, thanks for the support"

"This is Boss to Infiltration team, hurry up and find 'Goalkeeper' there won't be any-more 'fly' coming around."

"Will do Boss, out"

It was James as he finished the chat. The whole 'fly' thing was a major stunt thought up by James. Even the commander agreed as there was a patrol flight during the night. The whole thing was if we needed a distraction, a jet would make an overhead pass. It was an immense advantage as a second was precious but the jets engine would buy us a few seconds. The only draw back was there could be only one overhead pass as multiple would make the base suspicious. We even risked waking the whole go- damn base up but it was worth it in the end. Soon we were going to start the operation 'Final option'.

The operation was for a situation where we were gonna assault the mess hall, as it was the biggest building around we decided it would be the last to be breached. We were going cut the power and use IR vision scope to scan, if the mess hall had even one person we were in trouble, so the whole thing was made so exaggerating and there was a good chance that Aaron was there. We had already crossed out the places where there was no chance of Aaron being there. As Peter moved to cut the power supply we moved to our position, the fact helped that the mess hall was similar to ours. What Peter did was Prime the grenade and set the time to 25 second from default.

"Grenade placed" After he called it took 5 seconds to reach where we were. We waited until Andrew started the final count. We didn't have anything to shoot with or even a stock model of a gun to, you know point with.

"Breech on my mark, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, mark" As soon as we heard the call we ran past the door with our IR vision. As soon as all of us got in we started looking around, after starting our sweep we were suddenly blinded, like there was a sun right in-front of us. We were Dazzled and instinctively crouched on our knee and took a defensive stance. We took off our goggles and thought 'What-In-The-Blazing-Fury-Of-Hell-Went-Wrong'!? We hadn't raised any alarm, didn't got detected and there was no system on earth that was made to blind a person as precisely we were while wearing IR googles. We waited a bit and the light came back on. We heard steps of people coming in, most likely girl's but the were not rushing like they were responding to some emergency but they were calm, slowly walking in, like they knew what was happening. Soon as the disorientation passed I started seeing things, I suddenly saw the devils trio standing in front of us laughing.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS DOING HERE!?"

We were pretty shocked as we found the devils trio sipping coffee like it was their own home.

"Have a seat, we'll tell every thing to you guys!"

All three of them had smiles as they told us to have a seat.

It was then we found out the truth.


	8. Why did we jump into the frying pan

**Why did we jump into the frying pan?**

As we were seated in the central area of the mess hall, there were female trainees sitting all around us but first thing's first, what was the devils trio doing here?

"How did you manage to get in here?" It was a question that was asked simultaneously by all of the infiltration team. To which the reply was.

"First of all speak for yourselves, what were you planning to invade? Belka or Ustio with this equipment and E.M.P. grenades, where did you get them? Hell, I was surprised when the light came back like magic. The stuff we found on you looked like you were on a super recon mission of some kind" It was Mark who was asking us.

"We didn't came voluntarily and you know it, by the way we disabled the recording equipment and didn't went near anywhere." It was James arguing back.

"The most interesting part was the 'fly' thing, we never expected you bunch of primates to use a jet flyover as a distraction, I was sure that there were two patrols outside the mess hall but I wasn't sure how you would by pass them. Well Abernathy your grenade throw at the generator was superb." This time it was Rodriguez

I was a bit confused but kinda knew the answer.

"OK I know that you were listening in on us but how do you about the generator, unless..." I wanted to finish but was cut off in between by a sweet, melodious and young voice.

"There was a T-Hawk flying overhead, We were quite scared when you used an E.M.P. grenade you know, we had to raise the operation altitude of the drone and were completely baffled as the jet did the overhead pass and made our poor T-Hawk almost tumble out of sky." After a pause she continued.

"How rude of me!, let me introduce myself, I am Lorraine Parker, nice to meet you guys!" The welcome was friendly but there were other pressing matter.

"By the way Aaron is sleeping there, don't disturb him, he earned his rest." Ms. Parker smiled and pointed towards a direction and we were relieved that our friend was sleeping without a care for a damn thing in the whole universe but at least he was safe and sound.

"Now, what I want to..." We knew the question and answered in unison.

"We were solely responsible for..." Before we could finish we were interrupted.

"I consider it very rude to interrupt while a lady is speaking, what I want to know is 'How Did You Get So Good In Infiltration', were you guys some perverts in the past?", we wanted to reply but we were too embarrassed by the remark so our instructor Christ took the chance.

"They are the rumoured 'Snow Badgers', Ma'am"

Christ addressed a person with respect!, in an instant we were standing on our feet and in proper posture.

"Don't worry, at ease, I don't mind the formalities."

We were relieved that Ms Parker was a good person. She even pursued us to have a seat.

"So you are the 'Snow badgers'?, Well the name is good but it wont do for a flight name so think a new one, OK?"

We didn't reply as we had a dumb look that was soon becoming a norm for us, on our face.

"Well I am a flight instructor and not a basic camp instructor like these three here so if there is any problem related to flight training, just come to me and I'll try my best to solve the problem. Also the Instructors here are going to be instructors for the time until the exercise the day after tomorrow, After that they will be joining your batch of trainees under us flight instructors." We were shocked by the turn of events, the instructors were only a few years older from us but they had some real experience backing them.

"Hey then are we going to be the only batch of trainees, trained under you guys?" It was a question by James which was answered by Mark.

"You? Trained under us? Hell, We threw whatever we knew at you and you just survived like some badgers who didn't care. Plus the fact that being called a fighter pilot sounds better than an instructor."

"Plus you get to fly cool planes" Rodriguez had his eye's shining like a kid being promised a toy robot as his birthday present.

"Yeah , only thing to regret is going to be that we are gonna have to control our tongue."It was Christ and despite his word's he looked quite happy to the future prospect as a fighter pilot.

"That is quite true Mr. Silva" It was Ms. Parker who was quite offended by the use of foul language. She looked about 29, young, yet too old for any of us to have a chance, instead of looking at her like a women, it was more like you looked at a kind and gentle older sister.

"Well Ms. Parker has an aura of a mother." As soon as Peter finished his sentence he was given a judo throw by Ms. Parker and he went straight out of a window, looks like he had stepped on a sensitive spot.

"Please refrain from passing such comment about me, nothing annoys me more!" Well it looked like even the devils trio is afraid of someone. As soon as we settled down we were told what had happened. Aaron brought all the stuff back from operation 'E.V.I.L.' and was asked to wait in the mess hall as the girls brought some cookies as a token of appreciation for him. As soon as the cookies arrived Aaron was fast asleep, probably tired from the game. We were about to laugh at the events that had unfolded until now but it was judgement time and we were the ones being judged. Either we were gonna be stripped naked of our pride or we were gonna go back with our heads held high. The Instructor were already listening in on our frequency so they knew that nothing wrong had happened. Also they had taken a look in the recordings, they found the 'event' in the officers mess hall where operation S.P.A. was made clear to them. We were cleared of charges, It looked like we had have our pride with us, especially in-front of the girls then we took a breather. We were told to wait in the mess hall but the four of us were too tired for anything and fell to sleep right in the middle of the crowd along with Aaron.

It was four in the morning when we woke up, Aaron looked quite fresh and was surprised to see us in all the gear, he was not aware that while he was asleep, his absence was used as a 'just cause' to infiltrate this side of the base. My eye's were still a bit sore from the sudden stunt pulled by the devils trio last night. We all got up but there was no-body out here. Another thing I noticed was that all five of us were covered in ample of warm blankets, no wonder we slept so sound. We needed to return the favor, If it was back in the boys side and if you were sleeping in the mess hall, your face would become an artist's play ground and almost anything could happen to you. So the only thing we could do was.

"LETS MAKE SOME COFFEE" We knew where the store room was as we kinda broke in there last night and Aaron had seen where the utensil for brewing were. A storm of freezing nostalgia hit us as we recalled the day after we came back from the exercise. We soon got down to our work and had made enough coffee so that every one could be satisfied. We also had milk at our disposal today but we refrained from using it as we didn't knew what it was for. Soon we were sipping coffee and the mess hall was coming to life. The devils trio were standing in a corner and some cash changed hand, It looked like Mark and Rodriguez had lost a bet to Christ. Soon the coffee was being taked and we kinda waited for a reply,

"Yuck, it is too strong!"

"Yeah, it is barely drinkable."

"Add some water to it!"

We were confused as the devils trio were trying to control their giggle. We could tell as they knew this was gonna happen as cash was passed to Christ. We were a bit worried that our 'good will' was becoming a 'Bitter Will' and we surly didn't meant that. As I was planning to run and bring back some milk Aaron pointed at a dispenser and said in a calm, soft, almost docile and humble voice.

"There is the milk in that dispenser, We usually have strong coffee to start our day and didn't knew what was milk for, so we didn't add it before, sorry!"

With a reply like that there was no way you could say anything. Now there was a thing bothering me, Why was Aaron so reserved and polite here, Was it because of the girls, He wasn't that kind of a guy who would try to make an impression on anyone, so I thought that I will ask him later about the matter. Soon we had breakfast, It was the same as ours, so the only difference here was if you wanted you could have your coffee with milk but I was now used to the strong coffee, Also the thing is at first when you encounter your 'meal', it taste and look like some outer-space material but it is actually pretty nutritious for you, We had been through the rough and tough training and there was not a single complain of any deficiency in our body, but still the taste department could use some improvement. After we had the meal we then sat together with our instructors. After we had seated I raised a priority question.

"Hey Aaron, why are you acting so different? Is something wrong?" It wasn't like Aaron was celibate or gay, I showed him a model on a magazine and he commented that she was beautiful and when I went further to ask him which part of a women he preferred, Oh come on all the boys have one, he gave the reply as 'Legs and feet', Well I didn't question him further and slept peacefully from then on. He also had quite a bit of rest so it wasn't like he was being pushed around while he had a fever. I can agree to the fact that Aaron doesn't talk much, but that is when we aren't around but we all were here.

"Yeah Aaron, wanna get a chick before any of us? Quite jumpy aren't you" It was Mark, spear heading the offensive.

"N-N-No it isn't like that" Well Aaron was now in a fix and he had to answer some question.

"Then what is it?" It was now Peter joining the fray.

"Well I haven't..." Aaron trailed off in the sentence like he was under some pressure but all the other's were having fun with the current situation.

"Well you haven't what?" It was James and right now he looked pretty curious as to what Aaron had to say.

"Well I haven't ever had a proper conversation with a girl and for that matter I haven't even properly known a girl in my life." There was a dead silence before.

"HAHAHAHAHA... I NEVER EXPECTED THIS!"

"YEAH! AARON WHAT IS THIS, SOME JOKE?"

While Peter and Andrews were shouting like there was no tomorrow while James just gave a pat to console the big guy, What was strange was that the devils trio were still sitting and had smile on their face, sheesh now they looked like they were our elder brother's. Looks like I was gonna see a whole family made here and I was gonna be a part of it. Then Aaron explained that 'Hope' was a remote place and he lived alone with his father. Right now, except for Peter and Andrew we were pretty quiet. The solution for Aaron's situation was to do nothing, yes as nothing will help him develop any social conversation skill with anyone if we kept jumping in will not help him even one bit. Right now we were waiting for Parker, It was decided that we were still young enough and there was no need for Ms. or Mr, as it was too tiring. We sipped some coffee and chatting for a bit, mostly messing with Aaron about his inability to talk with girls.

"I see that you guy's are teasing Aaron too much, please control yourselves and take pity on the person, He is quite a fellow, didn't move an inch despite knowing what were we going to do if he messed up."

And here Aaron's face took a nose-dive and was hidden by his arms covering the sides of his face on the table. Then Parker continued. The instructors and us nuggets called the 'snow badgers' were supposed to do a seminar on 'How-To-Survive-Mount-Dry-Freeze'. We really didn't have anything useful but still we were to impart our experience with the others. Well there was all the survival kit, parachute and all there in one end of the mess hall. We told Aaron to go as it would help him gain some confidence talking around girls. Our group with Parker was cheering at him as he went to the podium. He casually grabbed a microphone and started.

"Hello, Test, Test, OK looks good." His voice was soft, humble and kind, yet a bit deep so it never is a bother to hear him speaking.

"Hello, I am Aaron Hunter here, well I usually live on the other side of the wall but due to some reasons came here and kinda dozed off. I hear that some of you know our group as 'Snow Badgers' after the stunt we had pulled during the first exercise, well yours was cancelled due to bad weather but it is most likely you will be dropped tomorrow into the mountain surrounding the base. I am also a nugget here so feel free to ask any question and I will try my best to answer them."

Taking a short break Aaron moved where all the kit and stuff was laid and picked up the parachute. We knew what he was going to tell us as we were with him when he applied 'Practical use of parachute after landing'

"As we can see here we have a Standard issue parachute, the 'Mark 11064', It is one of the oldest and most reliable parachute used in Osea." Here a nugget raised a question

"But there were still deaths right?" Well it was a hard one right off the bat.

"Yes, but they were due to the jumpers parachute being entangled or the jumper hitting the ground at a fatal angle. These are rare incidences that usually have a high chance of happening in a H.A.L.O. jump or High-Altitude-and-Low-Opening jumps. Those are done by special forces and the injuries and fatalities are a result of ungovernable factor like sudden up-draft, special force personnel go through a rigorous training regiment to deal with such incidents."

I was his room mate and I was shocked that the guy knew so much and even remembered it.

As Aaron ended his speech everyone looked satisfied and then only he proceeded.

"As you have been trained to use the 'Mark 11064' I will not bore you further. Any questions?"

There was one from the back.

"Is it true you guys played in the snow while the storm approached and then how did you survive the storm, can you tell us the whole story please?"

We were trying to control our giggle as even Parker was confused what were we talking about. Aaron asked whether the audience would like to hear him and to our surprise all the hands were up. Soon Aaron continued.

"OK I'll try to be as brief as possible, Ahem"

"We were lined up one fine morning and we were made to board a C-130, dropped in the middle of no where and our job was to get back home A.S.A.P., we started our march home as soon as we found the right direction. We were more than halfway through the journey home when we received a call saying some nuggets were lost and they were asking us for help, we had panic buttons but we would rather freeze than face our instructors, three of whom are there sitting in the back."

Aaron pointed at the devils trio while smiling as the devils trio replied by waving their arms and smiling back.

"So the three of us were in one group, Dunbar, Abernathy and me and the other group was made up of Andrew, Peter and two others, The group in which I was decided that we will go back to fetch them but the thing was we haven't had much fun in the first week so I knew there was a 'snow field show down' that's gonna happen when we reach there. As we met, all hell broke loose, there were snow ball flying everywhere and as you said we literally were playing in the snow. We were to busy blowing steam off that we didn't catch the warning over the radio, which by the way should never be done. We were completely unaware that a snow monster of a storm was prowling these mountains."

"So how did you prepare for the storm if you didn't know it was coming" It was a person in the front whom I couldn't see.

"We didn't, as soon as the storm came we opened our parachute and flew within the storm!" Aaron was pulling a nice joke here.

"Really?" The person believed what Aaron was saying.

"No I was just kidding, sorry for that but not about the parachute part. The thing is your Parachute is made up of nylon, which is a synthetic material and if any of you remember school, nylon is a strong fibre and also a good insulator. So after you have dropped, it usually is a good idea to instead of leaving your parachute at the drop point, take it with you. Of course there is a secondary parachute on your back but don't open it, it might be necessary later on if you have to base jump or something, plus the 'rigging' of our parachute is a pretty serious business. Now we know that the parachute is made up of an excellent insulating material that was quite strong too, and with some work your parachute could work as a stretcher, a wind breaker or just plain insulator because here at 'Mount Dry Freeze', you can use all the warmth you can get. Now coming to the question 'Why am I here as I should already be dead!', Well what we did was, we dug a burrow under a ridge. After our 'Hidey-Hole' was complete we jumped into it life little kids and folded one parachute until it covered a little more than the size of the entrance and used the parachute to seal shut the enterence. Now the question, 'how it helped?'. Well the shelter was underground so the terrain acted as natural 'wind barrier' and the parachute in the entrance helped 'plug the hole' and save precious heat within the shelter. Then all we did was happily chat while there was a storm blowing outside. In the morning we just opened the entrance, complained it was too cold outside and moved out."

Soon Aaron was being looked at like a god of presentator's. He answered a few more question like how it felt like, can they others do it and other tiny bits of detail before telling one last thing.

"Listen up, Survival is the use of you brains to endure the harsh environment you are struck in so be ready to invent on the spot! And good luck in the exercise tomorrow."

There were murmurs when Aaron suddenly cried.

"Hey won't you guys wish me back, I am also a nugget participating and could use some luck too you know!?" Then there was a burst of laughter as Aaron came back while the instructor's trio or the devils trio came to the stage.

It was Mark who was smiling with the other two as he briefed the audience.

"Don't worry we won't eat you guys as Aaron suggested, now to the survival basics who..." The devils trio

did their jobs quite well. The event was a grand seminar in which we were being bored and it could barely cover a few tactics from our training but never the less, it never hurts to revise. You could tell which person belonged to which branch. If the person was uninterested and listened just for the heck of it were the ones in the navy, they would have been more active if the topic was open water's. The Fairly interested were the pilots, as in the profession if they were shot down, which also will include us in the future, we would be on our own until a S&R force came for us. The one who were the most interested were the Ground force cadets, They could be posted anywhere so if they had a few tricks up their sleeve, their life would be easier. Well this was a pretty vague way to differentiate between them that I thought of. Obviously I am no magician and I can be wrong in my guess, It was lunch when the seminar ended. We were told to stay here as the other side of the base camp was a scene that was getting closer and closer to hell. As we were having a lavish hand-made lunch, It was kidney beans with boiled rice, but it was still lavish as compared to our normal daily food. We started asking Aaron how in the blazing fires of hell did he gave that lecture.

"Well I remembered that I had read a book on public speaking before coming here at Hierielark, It suddenly clicked my mind and I did what was written but really, I was so scared that if anything serious happened I would have ran away from here. I ain't never-ever gonna speak in public again." Aaron was just hiding his nervousness when he took the spot light and he was damn good at it.

"Hey we are counting on you for future lectures, don't underestimate yourself!" It was Christ who gave the encouraging advice.

"And also drop any formality between us, we are gonna be one of you in a few days." It was Rodriguez and he was right when he said that.

"Was there any formality to begin with!?" It was a stupid remark that earned Andrew a loud 'bong!' on his head. Well it was true. There was very little difference between us and we were more like brother than friends now. We laughed together and we played together. Right now we were having the most fun day of our lives.

After lunch we decided to do a warm up separate from the rest, this was because our training was super human, if any even though of doing it would faint at the spot but the benefit of surviving it was we could take on the whole boy cadets in basic training here with just Peter alone against them. As we did our daily routine which was getting less as our bodies adapted to the rigorous training regime. We did all the basics and then we started with advance exercise and then the extreme exercise. We were getting used to it but Aaron was leagues ahead of us. He could easily keep up with all the devils trio and still have enough power to go on doing more exercise and then again get up and keep up with the three. We were always surprised no matter how many times it happened, it was like a unstoppable force, going on and on. It was soon evening and we were all taking a break, Mark had gone to see how was the situation on the other side and when he came back and said every thing is settled we said goodbye to all the kind people who took care of us and went back towards our room.

"Mark, care to explain what are you guys doing here!?" It was 7 in the evening and when we explained the conditions of our room, filled with trash and stinking and you needed to decontaminate them with some heavy industrial chemical to deem them as 'Safe to live in'. After hearing our plight Parker and the rest of the girls were kind enough to lend us a room to hide our heads for the night. As we were being led to our room's Andrew asked a question.

"I don't see many instructors here!"

"Well lets say they are on an errand and if you are so eager to meet them, they will be back in about an hour" It didn't took a scientist or mathematician to guess where they were.

We just followed where our room was, told how the things will go tomorrow and then wished good night. We were all tired so we grabbed our place and went to sleep. Well we needed a good rest as tomorrow was an important exercise.


	9. First day

**The first day**

We all got up at 4, When we saw the base camp it looked like a nerve agent was sprayed here, there were people everywhere, sleeping in the open and the problem was they were all girls. We had examined the envelopes once again and there was a message from the base commander.

'You guys have made enemies of whole men here so stay with the girls for your own safety!'

It was a simply message highlighting the extend of stupidity present in the boys. We were already here so we thought that it will be fine but we are sure we will bury the base commander alive as soon as we get back. We set up tents and got all the idiots laying around out of the snow and in the tents. Then we started unpacking stuff, it was tent and supplies like water, food, ammo and equipment. We felt like morons for bringing so much with us but we would have still overstocked even if there was equipment on the ground. We set up the base camp and made the first priority beverage, coffee. Our stuff was in our tent so we tore open some MRE and had a decent breakfast. James was on the GPS to get a ping on anyone not from our side but we were safe here. Soon the girls started getting up and assembled together at a tent we named 'Frozen canteen' They were all famished and started having some coffee and then the MRE's. Soon all of them had their breakfast and we were asked why were we here.

"What are you guys doing here" it was a girl in the front.

"We are a part of bravo team and as you can see we saw to it that you kids don't catch cold but there is a problem."

"What!?"

The girls were pretty shocked after yesterday to see a functioning base camp despite the disaster and Aaron had told us he wants to talk to them so we gave him way.

"WHY THE HELL DID THE COOKIES TASTE LIKE IT WAS MADE FOR SOME MONSTER? WE REALLY CRIED WHEN WE HAD TO EAT ALL THE BREAKFAST YOU KNOW, WE WERE REALLY HAPPY FOR THE HOSPITALITY BUT WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED, YOU NEVER TASTED YOU FOOD DID YOU?"

Aaron suddenly bust out, we all were staring at him with our dumb look, it was getting a common occurrence for us these days. It was a cry from his heart, well he was not alone

"YEAH, WE ATE ALL THE SANDWICHES REALLY, OUR STOMACH STILL HURTS FROM YESTERDAY!"

It was Peter right now and he had tears falling from his eyes as he lodged his complain.

"AND THE COFFEE, IT WAS LIKE WHAT WE GET AT OUR MESS HALL, I REALLY THOUGHT THAT WE WILL GET A BIT OF MILK IN IT AS THERE WAS THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY, I REALLY WANTED MILK COFFEE YESTERDAY MORNING"

As Andrews finished his complain, the devils trio, James and me were face-palming ourselves, was it really so important? Then Mark, Christ and Rodriguez moved in, gave one to the three morons right on the head and spoke up.

"OK, as we can see that you all are up, lets get to business, The instructors are to move on the left side while the nuggets are to move on the right side."

There was no complain as the group suddenly divided into two, while this was happening Aaron took out a pouch from his pocket and passed something to Andrew and Peter, they all had eyes the same as the comedy film villains as they turned on the devils trio and before the devils trio could do anything their mouths were stuffed with something.

"Bleurgh... This was a cheap shot you bastards."

There was a joint reply from the instructors as the cleaned their mouth from the 'under handed cookie strike'. The devils trio grabbed some coffee to dilute the taste of the cookies.

"This was a 'Chemical Warfare' Strike from us three, Ha-ha"

As Andrew finished the devils trio suddenly pounced on the three idiots and held them in submission, As the three Idiots gave up, Mark continued.

"What the hell, do I have to think every of thing? Get to work, form a command structure or something or better yet, Build the remaining base camp!"

Soon the tent was emptied. As soon as the devils trio got out the were again attacked by the three idiots. Well these guys were enjoying themselves and continued for a while. They were doing what they were told, to enjoy the exercise but I had other concerns. As James helped set up the command center I helped set up the rest of the tents. We were done by 8 in the morning. We then took a rest after seeing the 6 of the morons sleeping peacefully in a tent after exhausting themselves, they looked like little kids and the girls passing by laughed and giggled after looking at them, it was quite embarrassing to look at so I hurried away. Most of us rested for about 4 hour, some drank coffee while some slept. Well I had slept for three hour and when I woke up I decided to have some coffee to freshen myself. I was in the 'Frozen Canteen' when a girl came to me.

"Umm... Excuse me" I was kinda standing in-front of the coffee dispenser so I felt a bit embarrassed. The girl took a cup of coffee and suddenly talked to me.

"Can you forgive us for the prank yesterday, we really meant no harm with the breakfast and as repentance we even had that... That stuff too." It was a sudden and unexpected apology so I just said it was OK and took another cup of coffee, it was a bit calming that the people were sorry but we were in an exercise right now and we are the kind to forget that we held a grudge against someone. The girl took off in a hurry after the apology, it was a bit strange but right now I had plan to visit James. I took a cup of coffee with me as I headed towards the command center. There were about 400 people in the camp so my group was tired after setting up most of the camp, If it was me last year I would have cried until someone got to take me back home, just comparing the me from past and the me now looks like I am an entirely different person. I smiled at the comparison as I entered the command tent, It was nothing high-tech but had a lot of big map and radios. I passed the hot cup of coffee to James and asked a question.

"How's it going boss?"

"We'll, we got to know a bit more about the bracelets, if you don't move for the ping time, you don't get shown on the screen."

"That's pretty useful."

Well it really was useful, the bracelets were to give a twist to the game and we were not told much about it except it was a GPS device with a panic button, so any information that gave us an edge was appreciated. As James sipped his coffee he showed me a big map of the area.

"Here we had detected a bunch of contacts but there were nowhere else after the encounter, probably went back to their base." The place he pointed was a bit ahead of the mid-line of the engagement area, it was nothing to worry about yet, there were not going to be any more patrol getting any closer to us, the engagement area was about 50 square KM in shape of a square, the distance was not near infinity and you could march about 20 KM easily but the problem was this was a mountain range and the terrain was rugged so it was no easy task to traverse the place. Also there was no use getting too far from the base as during the night it is very little use to stay anywhere else than base. I fooled around with James until it was 12, almost all of the base was up and all of us were gathered in the 'Frozen canteen' I was surprised that we set up such a huge place alone but before anything else Mark, who was with a few instructors was speaking.

"OK, listen up people, As we know..." He told us that the plan of action was to Wait today and start Patrol and Recon tomorrow. Some of the nuggets wanted to start all the work now but were told by mark it was no use. Well Mark is an instructor and when he gave a reason there were no question, we were told to relax and enjoy ourself but not to overexert as we had work to do tomorrow. So it was 12:30 now and I had the whole day to enjoy myself. I only saw mark in the tent, the rest of the party was missing except James. As I was walking aimlessly I was suddenly tackled from behind and knocked out. My head was screaming from pain as my hazy vision cleared and I saw Christ and Rodriguez in front of me. They had smile like they were drunk. Aaron was lying on the ground while Peter and Andrew were dancing like crazy.

"Hey lookie guyz, hic, the ape is alive." It was Rodriguez as he staggered around and called Peter and Andrews.

"I thout tat hi wa ded" It was Peter in he was also walking like he was going to fall any second.

"Yea, didz hez rezzerectz?" It looked like even Andrews was gone.

I tried to move but then I realized I was covered in snow, more specific would be I was buried in snow with my head popping out of the ground.

"HEY YOU IDIOTS, WHY ARE YOU DRUNK AND MORE IMPORTANTLY WHERE DID YOU FIND ALCOHOL TO DRINK AND WHY AM I BURIED IN THE GROUND, LET ME OUT-OFF-HERE!"

I was really panicking as all these idiots were drunk and it was really dangerous. These were insane people already and they were now even drunk, my life was in gods hand as suddenly a bottle was shoved in my mouth, it read 'VODKA' and soon I had ingested a lot of alcohol and blanked out.

As I woke up the sun was still quite up in the sky so I was happy that I didn't freeze as night came over and I was buried in the ground. The drunk Idiots were lined in a row besides me and they were sleeping like a baby. Then my vision went to a person a bit away from us, He was Mark and he was holding Aaron's camera and had a grin like that of a devil. Suddenly my brain jump started and my logic gave a scenario, Mark, a camera and a bunch of drunk morons, soon the result was in my head and as soon as I looked towards Mark he almost tumbled down laughing. The person had happily clicked photos as we were in a drunk state.

"HEY, GET ME OUTTA HERE!" I screamed as he went laughing away somewhere. It was some girls who heard the ruckus I made and dug me out. As I was taken to a tent and given hot coffee to warm up I wanted to bury these fools like they had buried me but there was a more pressing matters, Mark had some photos that I want censored but it was pretty obvious that he was not going to listen, I started running my brain. It was 3 in the afternoon so there was still time. What I needed were reinforcements and right now those reinforcements were sleeping. I took some more coffee as I felt like crap after suddenly drinking a very strong vodka but I needed to focus. James was most probably in the command center and I decided to talk to the guy to help me out. As I walked for the command center it was empty but I heard a lot of noise from the canteen, I got there as fast as I could but the disorientation hadn't passed away and I was still slipping now and then. As I entered the canteen my brain almost stopped working. There was a video being projected on the wall, I couldn't see the projector but the video was showing me singing while I was buried till neck in snow, there was nothing more to do there as I went back to our tent and tried to sleep but I had taken too much rest today, so I started to do some warm-ups to help pass the disorientation, I didn't know if it would help or not but it was better than nothing. As I did warm ups for a while I felt much better and felt like kicking Marks ass of to the moon. Soon the five drunk morons were awake too, Aaron was still a bit out as we tried to wake him.

"Please wake up and have some coffee, it may help pass the disorientation." There was a girl who was polite enough to take care of the big guy but Aaron rolled over and pulled the blanket over his head.

"I am sorry for all the trouble, I will take the coffee in a while." He must be pretty embarrassed from what happened earlier as his voice was very little like a small mouse but the girl was insistent.

"Please get up, otherwise the coffee will get cold."

"OK"

As Aaron got up, his cheeks were flaring red, it was maybe he was still under the effect of vodka. He took the coffee and thanked everyone present, only half an hour had passed as the whole 'Wake up' ordeal finished. Mark will never let us live this day down. We were searching for Mark but he was nowhere to be found. Then the search became a pointless stroll where I condemned the people responsible for all the trouble.

"Will you tell me why was I tackled out of nowhere and knocked out and then when I woke up I was buried neck deep in snow?"

"WE WERE DRUNK!" Well it qualifies as a valid reason as the 4 of them said in unison but still it was a bad excuse, If you can't take much then don't over drink! A whole bottle of very strong vodka was suddenly emptied into my mouth, and my consciousness went away soon. I didn't expect Christ and Rodriguez to have so little tolerance.

"By the way where did you find the bottles?" Well it was a question pestering me for quite some time.

"let me tell you the whole thing as for as I can remember." It was Christ who had somewhat of an answer to my question, not that it will help but if there was more then it was better to have them in safe hands.

"We were bored and instead of listening to Mark we went to see what all was there in the supplies, as we were rummaging through Aaron found a few bottle of a clear liquid, Peter tasted it and we found out it was alcohol, then things went south and when we woke up our heads were like someone dropped a bomb on it from space."

"Were there more bottles?" I wanted to confirm with him that there wasn't more alcohol there.

"Hell you ain't satisfied with being drunk once? Well there were only a few and as Peter challenged us to a drinking contest we took all that were there, But I don't remember how many were there." I was a bit embarrassed as I was misunderstood but still it was a disaster and I wanted to avoid it. Then we followed Peter as he recalled where the supplies were, We almost turned the whole tent upside down but we didn't find one bottle of liquor. That was a kind of good thing but then we went where the 'Drinking competition was held and I was shocked.

"WHAT THE HELL? HOW MUCH DID YOU MORONS DRINK!?"

There was silence as none of us knew how much each of drank except me but there were about 26 bottles lying here and there on the ground. We stared at the place for 15 minutes before gathering the bottles and any evidence of the disaster. We first thought of hiding the glass bottles but then just stored them in the supplies room. It made no sense, 26 bottles and adding the one that I drank 27 bottles were in the supplies but even more bizarre was all of them were drunk between 6 people, they were pretty big, about the size of a forearm. After a while we searched for any signs about who might have stowed vodka with the supplies but after extensive search there were no clue. We decided as there was a dead end, we should cease the investigation until some clue is found.

This first day was doing pretty bad for me and by now we were probably the laughing stock of the whole camp and soon the hierirlark base. We were sulking as Mark came out of no where.

"Why the sullen look guys? What's wrong?" Well as soon as he was finished he ran as fast as he could and we were right on his tail, Aaron didn't join us as he was still feeling a bit shaky and decided to call it a day. We chased him for an hour non-stop but in the end we caught him some-how as he was getting a bit cocky and decided to slow down as Christ took him down and the rest piled up.

"HEY GET UP, GET UP OR I AM GOING TO DIE" It was the cries of Mark as we were piled on top of him. We soon got up as he said that he won't run, Well he was our friend and we trusted him that much at-least. He then told us what happened.

"The thing is we got free entertainment for a while before the circus guys passed out!"

Then he explained that while the ape, that was me, was told a song, he would sing it on top of his voice while the others danced, It sounded very simple and very humiliating. He even had taken photos but it was no use, a video had already been broadcasted and we had lost all dignity. We went to the command center as James has called for all of us. We were not very enthusiastic right now but we had nothing on our mind. We had messed up and it was a major exercise too. While I was in my old world suddenly James shouted on top of his voice.

"WHERE WERE YOU GUYS? WE HAVE A MAJOR SITUATION HERE!"

There was a lot of shouting happening today and now we had something wrong.

As James showed us a map of the training exercise area and showed something strange. He pointed to a place towards the north of the map, It was circled 5 times. I was pretty clueless what that meant.

"OK here is the thing, while you guys were having fun I was pretty busy working my ass off." Right off the bat was a complain to which we had no answer.

"The thing is there may be a forward camp here."

"What makes you think like that?" I wanted a bit more update so I asked my friend who was looking pretty serious.

"The thing is I have registered activity there for about 5 hours now, plus there has been non-stop activity for the whole time while a perimeter was maintained with active patrolling. There are about 50 people there, 20 working and 30 on patrol."

It was really a major situation, it was a whole another thing if we haven't discovered the activity but we had discovered activity and if a support camp was established our base was closer in Alpha team's grasp. There was no rule saying that you need to defend your base but it was pretty obvious we couldn't last long without proper shelter and this was a combat exercise and not a survival that also had your location broadcasted every hour if you aren't careful. So we decided a small strike force of around 50 people will go and take a look at what is going on, the strike force will be followed by a supplementary force which will collect anything useful from the base. It was a good plan but there was a problem, It will take two days to reach the area. Also James explained a few more rules of the game. If you were shot then you had to put down arm and not offer resistance as you were captured, if you were captured, you would be taken as a POW to another base and if you were not captured then you were to report to your own base. A helicopter would come at the end of day to deliver supplies and take prisoners. There was only one big radio here that could broadcast as for as Hierlark and it sent a beacon every hour back to the airbase as a safety measure. You could call for supplies like food, ammo and coffee if necessary. So all we had to do was shoot first. There was no-problem about 'Cheating' as there were birds overhead observing the whole area. The thing was our group of Spartans could go in sooner, we would take, accounting the 1 minute interruption every hour about 6 hours, but I knew better to be sure than cocky so I decided to go with the flow. Soon there were 47 people and with Christ, Aaron and me we were 50. There were 4 instructor in the group so we divided the whole group into 5 squad with 10 member each led by an instructor. I and Aaron were with Christ with 7 girls. Soon the squads were told to get their kits set up.

"Hey Christ, should we go back and get our kit?" Aaron was asking it because we already had our kits made but they were in a tent on the other side of the camp and we were in a very basic suit that provided us just insulation against the cold.

"Nope, we have a ton of stuff here so get what you want from the supply area." I was happy that Christ spared us from a long trip across the base but at the same time a bit guilty to take excess. As we arrived in the supply area all my guilt was gone like it was never there, there were enough supply to arm a small country here, well it is a bit of an over exaggeration but it felt the most accurate. I was busy setting up other tent while the devils trio set up the weapons tent here so I never saw the place. As soon as we were in the tent everyone stayed until Christ spoke, I knew that Christ would not have a problem with me and Aaron taking what we want for our kit but we were his squad and therefore he was responsible for bringing out the most from us all. Christ then spoke up.

"OK, People listen up, First of all calm down, you look like you people are going explode any-second. First lets introduce ourselves, only first name would do." Christ was right, we were surrounded by girls but we didn't knew even one persons name, Well the day had been hectic and eventful so there was no time, at least it is what I felt. Christ was smiling as he got his right hand on Aaron's shoulder and the other on mine and spoke up while shaking me a bit.

"This guy here you might know as the 'Neck buried singing songs on request Ape' is Edward, is very talkative and cheerful so you might find his company fun." Well all my dignity had gone down the drain already so there was no harm in being introduced in such a manner.

"And this guy on my right you also might know as 'Lying on the snow knocked out drinking' person, He is called Aaron." Aaron was a bit embarrassed as he smiled on his introduction.

"Finally I am Christ, a boring instructor you might know as 'The one dancing around like crazy drunk'."

All 7 of our squad mates were giggling as our trio was introduced. I was pretty embarrassed but still the ice between the squad broke which was necessary.

"Nice to meet you guys, I am Aby"

"Hello, I am Ivy, Nice to meet you."

"I am Ciel, nice to meet you"

"I am Dana..."

"Hello, please take care of me, I am Anna."

"I am Ida, take care of my 6."

"My name is Gloria, nice to meet you boys."

We were introduced with our squad and chatted a bit as we agreed on deciding the load-out later, Soon we were going to prep our kit for the mission. It didn't feel bad to be introduced to a few more people. As Aaron and I started a conversation with them and after the preparations are complete we were going to be briefed on the mission.


	10. Time to Strike

**Time to Strike**

Instead of starting strapping stuff as soon as we broke in the supply depot we chatted with the girls, we were not trying to start something but we needed to know the people who may watch our backs. As we chatted we found a fact, the girls were pretty amiable to be with if you decide not to be a jerk. I was not popular with the girls so I rarely talked to them but it was not as bad as Aaron's condition. Christ was pretty sleek in the talks so I think he has some experience with girls.

"You were very funny Edward, especially when you suddenly stopped in the mid-way of song and shook you head for the audience"

"Yeah!"

It was Ciel who was backed by Ida. I was literally becoming a butt 'monkey' for all jokes, like a chew toy but that was supposed to be Peter! We chatted more like our preferences and dislikes, Aaron was quiet the whole time, well he did spoke at the seminar but that was like he was doing the whole thing blind, following a pre-determined script but here was a live event and no guide could help here. We chatted a bit more but then Christ broke the meeting and asked.

"OK lets see what load-out we all are comfortable with shall we? OK Dana first."

Dana was a reserved person first but talked normally after we got to know each other. All the girls were some good lookers but I needed to focus at the situation here. We decided that we would first take our armament so Dana Spoke her choice.

"Well I am comfortable with the normal barrel version."

Let me recall a bit more about the ACR-17, mainly function as the history is usually boring. The basic training requires us to qualify with this gun so we were familiar with it but it was a 'Modular' gun. In simple words the gun could transform and that was a cool thing, I am in 23 but still I was acting like a kid when I got to know the fact, A lot of stuff was now becoming modular and that is pretty cool. In its normal version it is a, you know a normal rifle, normal length everything, normal barrel and firing mechanism. The most miraculous thing is its reliability, durability and fire-power, the only set back of modular weapons is that to accommodate multiple module they sacrifice a lot everywhere but ACR-17 does not. It is a good gun for mid range combat but veterans are known to shoot 'Almost till infinity'. The thing is when a new weapon comes the green recruits are very happy but the vets are pretty annoyed as their more reliable equipment would be replaced but this gun has earned its respect from all the branches and all the people who hold this gun. It does not hold a candle to a dedicated rifle, sniper rifle or carbine but it compensates by having two more modules. The second module would be the 'Long Range Engagement' Module or LRE, called the 'Nothing much but taking your head' module by Vets, which is refereed as the sniper module for simplicity, to change a module you open up the gun and take out the barrel and the firing mechanism, which is compacted by being in a form of a box, sort of and replace it with the LRE module firing mechanism, A slightly bigger firing mechanism and a longer, heavier barrel, the scope power is your choice as it is adjustable. The only restriction is that from the three firing modes, Full-Auto, Triple burst and Semi-Auto or 'Single pull-Single Burst', you only get Semi-Auto as multiple burst would shake the gun too much. The firing mechanism gives more juice and the barrel more spin but the range extends just 20 percent, instead what this module does is makes you more accurate and that helps in picking heads off. Then third module is the 'Close Range Engagement' module or CRE, called 'Bringing the Party to ya' by vets, the changing method is same but the barrel is shorter and a bit more thicker than the sniper module and the most fun part, the firing mechanism enables you to fire at twice the speed with more force but the bullets loose accuracy and penetration the further they go. All firing modes are available but people usually prefer to go Full-Auto and let er' rip.

We were trained with all the modules but the focus was on the normal 'Medium Range Engagement' Module, MRE or the rifle module, called 'Your normal gun fellas' by the vets. So the MRE module was preferable but nuggets were pretty happy with the CRE module and a handful used the LRE but only a few could really use them properly. I ain't gonna say that the people around me are useless but I can say with confidence that the devils trio did one heck of a job to instil all the module operation into us, right now you could toss any gun to me and I will be shooting from it like it was my childhood toy in a minute. We continued and the following happened, the addition module were taken as follows, Ivy and Ciel took LRE. Dana, Aby and Gloria took no extra module and Ida, Anna took CRE. After they were set Christ told them to choose the rest of their load-out as they liked after they had taken the basics. Then Christ turned to us and spoke.

"There is no use asking you two but try to pack light, we are going to come back you know!"

There was a bit of sarcasm but we knew we were not gonna pack light by human standards but we were gonna pack light by Spartan standard. I took all the module and one red beret side arm. I took about 8 clip of ammo, that made 320 rounds and 2 clip of side arm that made 28 side-arm rounds, totalling to 348 rounds, I was confident of a one shot kill but there was a chance that I might miss. Then I turned to look what Aaron had taken and was shocked, He had taken three gun with the three module's, when I asked what the hell was he doing he replied that it will help save time switching, he was right but it was up-surd to take three guns but he had taken three side-arms too and had a child like gleeful smile and I knew there was no stopping him now. God knows how many clips of main and side arm he took in the tac-pouch and it looked like he was not ready to stop. He had 14 pouches of main-arm clips and 6 of side-arm and each pouch could hold 6 clips, he was a walking war machine by now for the level of engagement we would have, even Christ looked stunned by looking at Aaron gleefully pack his combat kit. Then we took on our Kevlar vest, survival suit and the jacket over it. Aaron had even stuffed his suit with more ammo so there was no stopping this guy now. Even Christ just took two pouch like me so we were pretty annoyed at Aaron but we had already seen that his heavy built allowed him to carry more than us and he was in a happy, playful mood which we didn't want to ruin. Soon we were ready and Aaron looked like he was on a commando solo mission, ropes, climbing gear and what-not. We assembled in the canteen where we were told the whole plan by James.

"You guys go in, take down the perimeter guard first and then the camp, we have the advantage as they don't expect a strike party coming but if you move in the scan time they might pick you guys up, be careful and good-luck."

It was short but we soon geared up. We were the 'Green squad' as we started our march. I was pretty surprised as Aaron was quite energetic and moved pretty fast, it was the same for all of us, this exercise was a fun one and we were starting to enjoy it. Soon the first hour was up and we were to wait a minute before we moved, we could talk but moving was out of question.

"Where did you find the Vodka bottles?" It was a question by Gloria and I said I had no idea and should ask the squad leader to which the reply was 'no comments'. We were thinking of assigning some call-sign in the supply depot but were told that it was useless by squad leader so we didn't have the chance.

"Yeah it isn't fair, you guys drank all of it alone!" It was Anna, well almost all the squad was pouting as Aaron and Christ faced away ignoring the talks. I was the one taking all the heat as we talked but soon the minute was over, we waited for another minute before moving out.

"By the way, Why are you looking like a monster Aaron, isn't it too much?" It was Ida questioning at the looks of Aaron, it felt like just him showing up will make the people in the base panic. I joined in the attack at Aaron to which he had not replied, soon after a while of comments by all of the squad member it was the squad leader speaking.

"There is no harm in him taking that much, he is easily keeping up with us so its fine isn't it."

Che... he knew that we were having fun teasing Aaron but still, well the girls agreed with Christ and we were then chatting normally, Aaron moved ahead with Christ to avoid us, well we might have overdone it but still Aaron wasn't gonna hold any grudge against us for this. We continued chatting with the hourly break. As we were busy chatting soon Ciel spoke

"Hey anybody had any hot coffee by chance?"

We were fine as we were warm in our attire but still something warm was appreciated, then I saw Aaron and Christ share a Thermos flask which was giving of steam in the cold.

"Hey pass some here too please!" It was Anna as she saw the squad leader sharing something hot with a squad member.

"Its Aaron's, he brought some hot coffee and not me!" It was an excuse by Christ to avoid sharing the hot beverage but we were undeterred by this.

"Hey Aaron, please pass some coffee here too!" It was Aby and I requested too.

"Hey forgot me bud?" it was my attempt at humour as I requested my good friend to share some coffee with us.

"Too bad Ed, the monster is not feeling like sharing anything with you guys!" It was a shock as we were denied the treat, before anything else we all said in unison.

"WE ARE SORRY AARON!" The coffee was desperately needed and if an apology was not enough I was ready to beg but the man was benevolent.

"Just kidding guys no need for sorry, here!" We were tossed two thermos bottles which were contested for at first but soon we all were enjoying a warm coffee by the mercy of the monster... umm I better don't say it to Aaron. Soon the Yellow squad who was walking beside us came near our leader and asked for some coffee, It was cold and there was no harm in asking for some hot coffee if there was any.

"Thank the man beside me, he took the trouble of packing extra which you guys are going to get!" It was Christ trying to joke around as Aaron passed three more thermos, now it didn't look bad but soon the Blue squad, Red Squad and the Pink squad were here, I felt bad as there might be no more for them but was astonished as Aaron pulled out 6 more thermos and passed two to each squad. He also apologised as all the thermos were finished, It already was enough that he brought some coffee and to add on that, enough for the whole company, sheesh... There is a limit to being polite but it was one of the many good qualities of the big guy. We then continued our march and were more than half-way there as we took out second hourly break, the squad leaders decided to plan the assault as they took out their GPS system to see the activity ahead. The rest of us grunts took rest,

"By the way Aaron thanks for the coffee, dude how many flask did you bring?" Gloria had a good question here, but we didn't get the answer as Christ was back with a smile on his face. Looked like he had won a whole county fair.

"We get to lead the charge! So people lets get moving. Green and yellow squad were leading the company assault, basically we were the cannon fodder and the rest of the company were the main force. I changed my gun to LRE module and got with Ivy and Ciel while the rest led the way. We were close to the patrols so we could hear the guns going any time. We with the LRE got to a good place to give over-watch and cover as there was no high ground here, while Christ and Aaron were the first while the remaining were following them.

"This is Christ, I see two tangos, Aaron and I are engaging." After a brief broadcast the two started running as I fixed the tangos in my sight, I thought they were gonna shoot them but I was dead wrong, they continued to accelerate and hit the Patrol like a missile out of nowhere. The Patrol was down and I heard two shots followed by a transmission.

"Tangos subdued, proceeding." I felt like we were just spectators but the tactic was good, didn't gave chance to raise an alarm as long as you were not seen coming.

"This is green advance team to all forces, hold short, we have something here!"

We were pretty worried about what was going as we hurried forward, but soon there were gunshot sounds, shout and screams. I was just as I feared, these two couldn't control themselves and went ballistic. Soon the CRE and MRE group met up with ours and observed the situation. There was no use rushing in if you didn't knew what was going on.

"What's going on? What happened with Christ and Aaron?"

There were many question with all like Dana had but all I could say at that point was.

"Just watch."

There was no use now as the two bat-shit insane friends had charged at the camp alone.

"What the hell, the guy looks like he came for a war, get him." After fiddling with my radio I got the Alpha teams frequency. All the while you could hear gunshot sound. As we looked at the two green member we were baffled.

As Christ rifle ran out of ammo Aaron took a Red Beret and passed it to Christ while he held his rifle one handed and downed two guys, at the same time Christ took the side arm and fired forcing two other tangos behind cover. Then Aaron crouched and took down another as Christ took the LRE module rifle from Aaron's back and shot one tango, After they had taken care of the first wave they ran for cover. They were reloading weapons as more fire was concentrated on them, by now 16 men from the other side were down and we had zero loss. If you were hit by a bullet you would stagger and fall like one had in my sights. Soon I decided it was time for the LRE module to get to work.

"Ciel, Ivy, lets give cover fire while the others provide reinforcement." It was simple as the LRE module provided cover fire and the rest proceeded.

"Miss"

"Missed"

"One down"

While the others missed their shot I got one down but before I could take more targets Christ and Aaron jumped from cover and went ballistic again, taking all 5 of the remaining tangos with two CRE's full-auto barrage. Then the clips were reloaded and Aaron took the guns from Christ while the squad leader got a MRE and LRE from Aaron's back. After Aaron had set the two CLE gun on him he took the MRE module from Christ and the two ran away. As a long range fire support provider it was a disaster for us as our line of sight was broken by tents lined up and we had to relocate.

"Lets move" With the simple prompt we got up from our prone position and started running towards the tent where the rest of the group was. As we met up there were more sounds of gunfight happening ahead.

"What happened?"It was Gloria who was baffled.

"Nothing, lets move." I urged to the green squad to move ahead. As we pushed in the camp I was cursing the 'Ballistic duo' as they had ruined the whole strategy. We were being followed by the whole company and the problem was if we didn't hurry we were never gonna get a chance to shoot our guns. After half an hour the skirmish was over and we had suffered no loss while we had taken 50 of the other teams member.

"Cheers to the advance green team members, who took out about half the camp alone." It was a Red squad member as she raised a cup of coffee, there was coffee in the camp so we enjoyed a calm relaxing sip of coffee after our work. We would love to celebrate but we grabbed whatever we could as the weather was getting bad and It was dark, we decided to keep all the unconscious member in a secure tent as we moved back to our base.

"Hey what was that, you two went ballistic there." Yep Ida was right as we all only took one down and I had the pleasure of taking two down while the 'ballistic duo' had taken 21 themselves.

"Well we were just messing, you saw what we were like, we kinda looked like we were shooting an action scene." It was very true but then it was all they did as the whole company came and started massacring the remaining force there.

"It looked like you were gonna take the whole camp alone." Ivy sounded very realistic as she stated a true fact, it was another thing that the duo were really messing around. If they were serious they could have taken the whole camp down without making a single noise. Well I really wanted to get back to a warm tent soon. In the way we encountered the back-up and we dumped everything we were carrying on them and were quite happy after the fun today.

"Aaron you planned this from the starting didn't you" It was Christ as he gave a nudge to Aaron. This explained a lot. We were trained the Spartan way and were pretty confident that we would hit a target in a few shots. The girls were chatting behind us as the boys trio was in the front.

"Yeah, we had a ton of ammo to waste, a good number of targets and freedom to shoot with no pressure. When was a situation like this come up again?" Aaron was right, I was a fool to think professionally, it was an exercise for gods sake and I could have enjoyed it like Aaron and Christ.

"You're right man, I sure was lucky to stick around you. The most fun was when we unloaded the whole clip into the 5 instructors there, the look on their face was one to remember as they were finding who was sniping them and we both jumped out and gave em' hell. By the way Aaron why did you bring three guns?" It was a question bothering me too, he was good enough to do the same feat from just a CRE or MRE module.

"Yeah but if I wasted time changing module's and clip's the company would have caught up with us, also you were shooting like there was no tomorrow, I almost ran out of clips you know!" Aaron gave his justification as I was confused by the fact that Aaron had thought that far ahead while we were equipping ourselves in the supply depot.

"But you were carrying enough to supply a squad so I thought I could afford to live a little!" Now we had started chatting aimlessly as we proceeded back to our camp but then there was a call on my radio.

"Some body please respond there is an emergency here, please this is not a joke."

I realized that my radio was still on the Alpha teams frequency. Aaron and Christ urged me to reply.

"This is bravo team green squad, what is wrong Alpha team?." not that they would understand but still I needed to tell them who I was. The whole company stopped and gathered around us.

"Please hurry back, there is a guy who has fallen off a ledge and we don't have any equipment here to get to him, please hurry or he is going to fall!"

As soon as we heard this we looked at Aaron, who had all the climbing equipment plus ropes on him and them Aaron shouted.

"MOVE "

It was deafening but we saw the seriousness of the situation, it wasn't like the case we had with Peter that the guys were lost but there was a life in danger and the boys had pride so they weren't going to pull a prank this desperately. Aaron checked his GPS and shouted.

"HURRY THE FUCK UP PEOPLE"

He was dead serious as he was using profanity in his sentence that he never used before so we got the sense of urgency but Aaron suddenly started moving even faster despite all the snow and he, carrying even heavier load than us was like if he ran any faster... and holy shit, he literally sped up even more and soon was out of our sights like he was a rocket engine. We were sure to not be left behind and sped up but Aaron didn't came in our sights for a while. A normal soldier can sprint for about 5 minutes before running out of breath but we were carrying lighter equipment and we weren't human as of right now as we continued running. Soon the camp was in our sight and there was a whole group on the other side, while Christ and I slowed down to catch our breath Aaron was still sprinting and speeding. Soon a guy ran towards me and started talking,

"Thank god you guys came, we were dizzy after all the fighting and then when we got up we-we then..."

The guy was panicking as I told him to calm down and we headed towards to ledge while he explained things.

"A guy was staggering and he went near the ledge, then he slipped and now is hanging from a small crevice with single hand, he also told that he was bleeding a lot from his other arm and his gripping hand was giving way, we didn't bring any rope as we had just begun to set up this camp and we decided to bring them later. We saw a frontal assault guy bring some rope and climbing equipment with him so we tried calling on all frequency and even sent a runner after you guys, please help us out."

By the time the guy finished Aaron had already tied the rope around a tree and the other end to a harness and then to our horrors jumped without a single safety device. We sped and grabbed the line to give support as Aaron screamed in a minute.

"THE GUY IS SECURE, HURRY UP AND PULL, HE HAS LOST A LOT OF BLOOD AND PASSED OUT."

There was nothing else to do as we all pulled the rope with all our might. As soon as the guy was up we all wanted to cheer for our friends bravery but couldn't as Aaron was carrying a bleeding person in one hand while he cut the rope with his survival knife not bothering to unfasten the harness and started shouting, this time his shout were putting our instructors to shame and he was like threatening all present there.

"GET ME A CLEAR TENT, SOMETHING CLEAN TO LAY THIS GUY ON, STERILE NEEDLES, MEDIC KIT, STERILE GAUZE, COTTON SWAB AND TRANSFUSION KIT, **HURRY THE HELL UP I NEED ALL THESE RIGHT NOW!"**

Right now he was screaming at instructors, the 'Demons' of 'Mount Dry Freeze', the people who instil fear in the very heart and soul of a human, and right now they ran for their lives, we all ran for our lives. One guy leaded us into a tent, there was some white clothing as a carpet of some sort as Aaron gently layed the wounded person he shouted again.

"WHERE IS MY STUFF, WE ARE GOING TO LOOSE HIM IF WE WAITED ANY LONGER!"

Soon the tent was filled with me, Christ, Aaron and two instructors. There was a big wound running all the arms length and pieces of rock were stuck here and there. It was just horrifying to look at. The person looked pale, like the warmth and life had left the body. Right now only Aaron was the one who knew what he was doing and the final line of defence between the world of living and the dead. All of us present there prayed to god to save this person but one guy didn't, he was too busy trying to save the almost dead person to pray to god for any kind of blessing. Aaron was something else right now, an unreal sight it really was, it looked like he was the 'Guardian Angel' of the wounded person. It was sure that the guy lying on the floor was gonna die, just not yet and sure as hell, not today, at least not on his 'Guardian Angels' watch.


	11. Fight against the fate

**Fight against the fate**

We were in the tent and we sterilized whatever we could, washed our hands with alcohol, and wore face mask and head gear to avoid infection in the open wound. The skin was peeled off, probably trying to get a grip in the rocks while bits of rock got lodged in the flesh and on top of that this guy had lost a lot of his blood while hanging. His clothes were also ripped here and there and his body was devoid of insulation as he hung thousands of feet in the freezing air. Aaron had stopped shouting on top of his voice as most of the required material were here but there was a catch, we couldn't do much as there was very little blood that was preserved in the system plus the condition was critical to administer anything without confirming, Aaron had done all he could to sew a few broken blood vessels back together and did ligature on those he couldn't to stop any unnecessary blood loss. We took one by one all the rock pieces out of the wound and then to prevent infection we poured some alcohol over the wound, we were crazy doing all this and this was barely covered in the buddy care system but still we just couldn't sit tight with thumbs-up our asses as a persons life slowly bleed away. After that we applied some antiseptic ointment and wrapped the wound with sterile gauze, cotton and anything that is sterile and helped keep the arm together, then we needed a splint, we were already in a panic as we had just dealt with the wound. The Regional anaesthetic had numbed the left side of the body and that helped a lot but the forearm was fractured and we needed to set it until emergency rescue arrived. It would take them 15 minutes to get here but this may be too long.

"Where the hell is the transfusion kit!?" Aaron was talking in his normal calm voice as the wound was treated but we still needed to get some blood in the guy.

"He is B+ but we need to ask around for matching blood." An instructor replied as we were brainstorming.

"Hey pass me my kit, it is there in the corner." Aaron asked for his combat kit in the corner which an instructor passed while asking a question.

"What are you going to do with your kit?" We already knew that Aaron could think ahead but still we needed to ask, another instructor was about to go out to find a splint but Aaron stopped him.

"No need, I got a splint here." We were confused as Aaron took out his CRE gun and proceeded to disassemble the gun, he kept the firing mechanism back as he took out the barrel, it was simply ingenious. As we setted the splint a guy came in with the transfusion kit.

"We need to find a B+ blood guy here, Ask around." As instructor was talking to the person who came in the room Aaron stabbed himself with an extraction needle from the kit.

"What are you doing?"

"I have a special blood type which means I can give blood to anyone without problem, Almost forgot about it!" Aaron joked as the blood was transferred to the guy, soon Aaron had reached the volume a single person is allowed to give but it was enough, as colour started coming back to the body which was looking pale a while ago. We all rejoiced that the guy would live to see another day. Then Aaron, I and Christ grabbed our stuff and quietly took off as the base was in a mess from the choppers arrival. Soon we were on our path and It would take us 3 hour to reach our base. We were quietly walking as we chatted a while as choppers overflew us, I really would have appreciated a ride back to base but it was no use. We needed to pass time so we asked Aaron a few question's.

"How did you got the idea of using the CRE module barrel as a splint?" It was Christ first.

"Well it just hit me suddenly as I saw the combat kit! The barrel was the perfect thing for a splint, strong yet light as it is hollow, I then just strapped the thing without delay."

He was correct as when we think of a splint we think of wood or some rigid stick and the barrel fitted just right.

"By the way we were really scared when you started screaming there, Take my advice and become an instructor, no one will dare question you or better yet, a PJ." It was Christ joking around, well he was right, all the instructors looked terrified when Aaron yelled, it was just plain scary.

"Yeah but I couldn't afford not to, there was blood all over the rocks where the guy was hanging and he looked like he had fainted hanging as I talked to him and strapped the harness on." It was justification by Aaron as I asked a serious question.

"You even jumped without any safety and in the tent you looked like if death came around to get the soul you would beat it into submission and ship him to the furthest place in the milky way." It was more of a statement but still there were concern on the hazardous action of our friend to which he just smiled. We all were as we just had saved a life. Then we continued our march back and soon time passed like water as we chatted all the way. As we entered the camp green squad was standing there waiting.

"Can you tell us what happened?" It was a question by Aby to which Aaron replied.

"Nothing much, just a guy who had fallen off the edge near the camp and all they needed was the rope and climbing equipment on me."

As the reply was casually delivered Christ and I were staring at each other before we smiled at the thought that hit us 'No Need To Stir Things Up', plus the story sounded pretty unbelievable as I sighed and went to the Supply depot to keep all the stuff. I took a glance back and found that the green squad was following us. I didn't stop and question as I was tired after what had happened. After we had reached the supply depot we checked our equipment, first we kept the main-arm and side-arm back while Aaron replaced the missing CRE module barrel and we one by one checked all our stuff. The empty clips were still with us as finished up and were about to leave the tent, suddenly the whole green squad came and asked up.

"Please tell us about the gun and its module!" We were tired but still a small discussion couldn't hurt. Soon we all were seated as Christ started.

"First of all the MRE module or the 'Medium Range Engagement' module. It uses 7.66 mm standard issue ammo and nothing special as all the three modules were basic module but other allows for attachments like tac-light and grenade launcher. Allows maximum choice for almost any type of engagement and..." He went on for a while before he came to the second module.

"Now the LRE or 'Long Range Engagement' module, some morons call it a sniper module like the ape sitting with you but it fulfils the role of a Designated Marksman in a fire-team of squad." I was ridiculed but still sniper module sounded cooler and simpler.

"It uses normal ammunition like the MRE but it doesn't help much except help increase focus, I prefer the LRE Mk 2 module or LRE adv as not only it can be fed normal rounds but specialised LRE rounds which make it a true sniper module. Also the sights..." As he continued I went with Aaron to grab some coffee, most of the camp was sleeping as we were having our lecture in the supply depot. I was staring at the mountains, glowing in moonlight as Aaron sighed looking at the scenery.

"Can't stop staring at the scenery can we?" It was a simple and stupid comment by me to which Aaron replied.

"I wished I was an immortal so I could just watch to my hearts content." We were reluctant to leave the view but it was cold out here so we went back to the supply depot.

"The CRE module is the most effective from the three as it changes the firing rate but the same thing is a disadvantage as it doesn't help conserve ammo, well that will be all for now." As Christ finished the girls were still excited and could go on for all night if we didn't stop them. We dragged ourselves back as we were too tired to do anything else by now, Christ looked zestful while speaking but was really tired as we dragged him with us, as we arrived at our tent all our friends were sleeping without a care in the world. Who were we to question them as we jumped in our bags and went to sleep.

We woke up at 4 but then the three of us decided to sleep a bit more, I was having a very sweet dream, I was an ace who was being awarded a medal while a sexy girlfriend was there but then suddenly I was dragged down like there was a black hole below me, I cried a bit as I knew the dream was not gonna come back and by the time I managed to open my eyes my vision was still blurry as I was being dragged on the ground, as my vision cleared I saw Mark, Rodriguez, Peter, Andrew and James standing in front of me but they were upside down, the sky was below me and the ground was above me. I was thinking that this was a dream when suddenly a snowball was hurled at my face, it struck like a bomb and I then knew this was not a dream but I really was hanging upside down and all the inverted looking people were pretty angry,

"What did you guys do?" It was a simple question asked coldly by Rodriguez.

"Yeah, you must have pulled of something big." It was Peter accusing us of a crime which I had no idea about.

"You guys were the buzz yesterday and today you three are still the hot topic in all the gossips, Please tell us what happened yesterday." It was James and by his tone it looked like we had killed someone. I was racing my mind to give an answer as Christ spoke up.

"We just went back and saved a guy who had fallen off a ledge! Aaron had the stuff on him and there was no rope or anything there at the camp so we had to go back, nothing more!" Well something like that happened yesterday but I was still not awake yet.

"It can't be, there must be something more." it was Mark as he was unsatisfied with the answer and as we were being interrogated by our friends I prayed to god to get me out of this situation and he answered by sending the green squad girls Gloria and Aby.

"Hey! What are you doing to Aaron, get away from him." Was I not important? But as the girls confronted the guys we slipped out, we were in full sprint as we had no idea what was going on and where we should go.

"What was that and why was Aaron the only concern of the girls, Aaron you bastard tell me what is going on!" It was Christ as he let loose himself on Aaron, asking question after question. Even I asked what was going on

"Buddy tell us now what is going on, please we need to know if anything you did had these consequences."

"Why are you both treating me like an escaped convict? I am as clueless as you guys are!"

There was no use asking anything right now and Aaron was with us the whole time so there was nothing wrong but why were we being chased, Soon we found Ida and Ivy and for some reason they were also suddenly chasing us, I was surprised as they were keeping up with us but then I was thinking too much and running too less, Aaron and Christ had left me behind, I thought I was a goner as my foot slipped and I fell face first into the snow. The girls ran past me as I was cleaning my face from the snow, I was there for a minute as I saw Christ and Aaron being chased by Mark and Rodriguez and the chasers had guns in their hand. Suddenly Aaron and Christ started running faster and some shots were aimed at me, well I restarted my brain and there was just one thing there, 'R-U-N' I didn't knew what had I done but from the look on Mark and Rodriguez faces I knew even if I surrendered they were going to unload clips after clips onto me. As I joined the runners some rounds hit my back.

"HEY THIS IS FRIENDLY FIRE YOU MORONS!" As I screamed in agony the shooters replied back by shooting a bit more and screaming back.

"WE DON'T CARE!"

There was no hope for peace as the shooters were too angered to listen to our reasoning. After a while as we were constantly being shot at we saw Ida and Ivy with guns in their hands, I really was prating to god to help me as Aaron grabbed mine and Christ's suits by the collar and pulled us in an opening between the tents, there were rounds fired from both sides behind us. We were in an empty tent as we took some respite from running. We three took a peek and saw a battle field all over the place, everyone was shooting everyone, something had happened and we were out of the loop.

"Follow me!" As Aaron spoke Christ and I nodded to him, then we navigated the whole camp which had turned into a battlefield, as we navigated the whole camp dodging fire and running all over the place like crazy we arrived at the supply depot. We rushed in but most of the supplies were gone as people had taken the liberty of grabbing guns and ammo and were very busy unloading rounds at each other.

"It is hell out there, I ain't gonna go out there even with a gun!" I was pretty firm in my statement as Aaron packed ready to eat rations and Christ grabbed all the guns.

"Less talk and more work, Ed get as much ammo as you can, hurry!" Well there was not a single thing that made sense right now so I did what I was told. After a while we had multiple crates of stuff with us but what were we gonna do with them? I had no Idea as Aaron opened a part of the covering tent and gave us the signal to get the crates out. We stacked the crates and carried them out in the cold weather. Then we made a bee-line as far as we could from the base towards the woods.

"Where are we going and what is all this stuff for?" Most of the equipment was gone from the supply depot but we still managed to get enough to arm about 50 people to the teeth. Aaron didn't say anything as we moved on. Soon we arrived to our tent and Aaron simply said

"I am too tired for anything now, after we hide the equipment we sleep." It was a good idea, our tent was a bit away from the base camp and there was no place else to go so Christ and I went to sleep as Aaron said he said he will take care of the equipment. We slept soundly as the whole camp was in a chaos.

It was evening as we woke up, all three of us were very hungry as we dug into the ready to eat rations and sipped the supplementary drink, despite all the rumors they taste quite good. There were still gunfire happening back at the camp so we decided to wait until it was quiet. We played cards to pass time, Christ was not at all good at the game at first but when Aaron taught him he played pretty well but I was the king of poker, or so I thought until Aaron won. We had multiple round of poker until the base went quiet. We decided to check up on how were the people doing out there. As we arrived at the camp it looked like the first knight, just more worse. There were girls laying everywhere, Painted neon from bullet hits everywhere, the whole base looked like there was a paint-ball fight that happened here but I knew the training rounds were used and they were quite similar to the paint-ball's the only difference was both hurted like hell but the training rounds were very painful than the paint-ball. It looked like most of the fighters were knocked out by the bullet impact but then we started to search for our friends, as we scoured the whole camp, we found them in the command center, with most of the green squad girls, looked like they made a final stand and were successful in holding there ground, Peter looked like he just stood there in-front of bullets like a moron as his vest was fully colored but there must be some reason as he was trained the same as us. We took a large spare tent and set it up beside where ours was and one by one dragged all the green squad and the guys in it. We were reluctant to help them as they were the ones shooting at us in the morning but we just couldn't let em' freeze out there. We tied all of the unconscious, just in case they sill held a grudge against us for any reason we weren't aware of. We sipped coffee and waited for the warriors to rise. First was Andrew, then Peter and the rest followed. As they got up the started blabbering something.

"We are running out of ammo people!" It was James, he was till pretty disorientated and it was the some case for most of the people waking up. Soon they realize that they were not in the command center but somewhere else and then they realised that their hands and feet were tied up, rendering them immobile.

"Hey what is this?, why are we tied up and where are we?" It was Ciel asking about her current situation. Most of the party was confused but then Anna spoke up followed by Ciel

"Aaron, Squad leader and Ape!, Where were you guys, we looked all over for you!"

"Yeah and... What the hell, not a single spot on you guys, are you some ghost or something?"

At first it didn't made any sense but then I saw the three of us were spotless except my back, which was the result of Mark and Rodriguez firing on me. We decided to stay quiet about the fact that we were sleeping while the whole base camp was rolling under reign of chaos. After everyone was conscious I asked the most important question.

"Will you tell us why were being chased in the morning?" With the simple question the face of all the tied people suddenly turned their faces away as they had no choice but to answer us. Peter was the first to speak.

"The thing was since day one we were not very popular with the girls, and the drunk antic we mistakenly pulled didn't help much. We were not some jerks who were going to drop some pick-up lines here and there but still we would have appreciated some attention. It was fine until yesterday evening but then the weather went awry but you guys were not with the platoon that came back, then there was a commotion about you guys but we thought you would be fine and waited a bit but then after a while there were gossips about you guys, we couldn't make out what they were but still we were curious, we then went to sleep as we were tired. Then in the morning when we saw you guys sleeping with us we were relieved, so we went ahead not disturbing you three to get some coffee but when we arrived at the canteen we heard gossips about the 'People who were drunk' and there were smiles all across everyone's face, then we lost it and dragged you guys out for interrogation as to know why the hell were you popular with girls in a single night. TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED WILL YOU."

Peter was very jumpy as he finished then we asked the girls what was going on.

"You don't know, well all I will say is we see Aaron in a whole new light!" As Ida finished all the girls nodded in unison, we were annoyed but there was no use keeping them tied up if they were not gonna speak so we opened the ropes and let them all loose. The Mark and group were pretty satisfied after hearing that we were also clueless about the fact and only thing we knew was it was Aaron who was suddenly popular with the girls. As we were talking multiple stomachs roared around the same time.

"What was that?" As Christ asked the question I saw that Aaron was missing, well soon the big guy came back in the tent carrying ready to eat rations and thermos flask's.

"They had been fighting on empty stomach the whole day so I knew this would happen so I went ahead and brought something to eat." As I looked at the people sitting on the ground I saw their eyes shine like a puppies and mouth watering, there was nothing more to say as we all ripped open the ration's and started filling our stomachs. From time to time there were comments of appreciation and praise directed towards Aaron, he looked pretty embarrassed by this so we all got in together to tease him, it was fun to see his reactions. As we were munching away Christ asked a question to the girls.

"We didn't find Aby and Gloria after morning anywhere, where did those two go?" It had been bothering me for a while as the two were missing from the green squad members. Ivy answered while her mouth was still filled with food.

"They will be fine, they are with Cherry after all!" I heard someone's name who I didn't knew and before I could ask Ida spoke

"Well you don't know her, she is the best in our camp and very smart too, Probably smarter than all of you combined! You will know when you meet her." It was a rude comment but we had James and Aaron in the intelligence department so it was none of my concern and as of right now we had barely showed our full extend of skills so I was not offended much. I was expecting to meet Cherry as she was praised a lot by the girls but then James raised another concern.

"We better get going, the supply choppers will be here by 7, Also what is the time right now?" As I looked in my watch I was hit by remorse as I answered the question.

"It is 7:10 right now." As I answered the question we heard the sound of spinning propellers above us, I stared at James and then started running as I was followed by rest of the gang. We left right then and there.

"SQUAD LEADER!, WHY ARE WE RUNNING?" It was Ciel asking Christ what was so urgent, to which the reply was

"HURRY UP PEOPLE OR THE CHOPPER PILOTS ARE GONNA HAVE OUR HEADS FOR DINNER!" Despite the remark we were running pretty slow by our standards, it was to make sure that the girls weren't left behind. These days the chopper's are so advance that they can land without a signalling crew but they still needed directions on where to land, plus flying a chopper here in high altitude is a real pain for the pilots as the air is thin and the propellers have to spin faster to provide the essential lift for the craft. The fact we are having fun here while the chopper pilots are forced to keep us supplied makes them stingy. Also some people are required to help unload the supplies a long speech full of sarcasm and complain is waiting for you if you mess up like we had right now. It was not our job to signal the chopper but then almost all of the base camp was knocked out and we were the only ones who were awake so the job was ours right now and we didn't have a choice as we feared that the pilots in frustration would leave without dropping supplies. We could do without supply drop for three days but still it was no excuse to be lazy. As we arrived at the drop zone we found three girls had already helped land the chopper and there was another one standing with them. As we arrived the unknown girls spoke to us

"So you guys decided to show up now, Eh?"

We were greeted with sarcasm as we arrived, I made a guess that this person is Cherry, no doubt about it. But there was a problem, she looked the serious high and mighty noble type, the same as with James in the past, well James changed a lot after meeting with us, we kinda dumbed the guy down but he was happier than before so there was no problem. The 'Snow Badgers' personality we guys had, careless and crazy, we were gonna have a tough time with the lady.


	12. Getting supplies and having fun

**Getting supplies and having fun**

After the massacre that had happened in the camp, there were few who were capably of unloading the supply consignment that had arrived and that number was precisely 16, half of which were we boys, as I was carrying a huge crate as I got a call.

"Move the coffee with the 'ready to eat' ration's, Hey you there! where have you kept the ammo crate's?"

I felt annoyed as the Cherry person didn't bother asking us our names but I didn't have time to complain as I kept the coffee crate down and went back in the CH-47's cargo space to get some more. The chopper was still filled to the brim and as only 8 people including the 2 chopper crew member were unloading the stuff while the rest were 'Coordinating' the task.

"Hey helping us unload will make the job a lot easier!" It was a simple complain which was ignored totally, I grunted as I got back to unloading. The devils trio, me, Aaron and Peter were hard at work while the group of James, Andrew and the greed squad girls were standing in a circle and holding a map. I saw straight through that it was a ruse as no-one had yet made a map of the base and they occasionally giggled, Trying to hold their laughter as not to attract Cherry's attention to themselves who was talking with the pilots with a clipboard in her hand. I continued to unload stuff with the others but it felt pretty boring and before I could say anything a crew member started speaking.

"How is the 'exercise' going?" It was a bit sarcastic for a question as the tone indicated a lot of mockery but who could blame the guy, he had to shuttle supplies between the airbase and the camp like a daily job that sucked while we nuggets were having a fun time here. The rules of engagement were changed so it was not necessary for those who were 'hit' to go back to the air base. I was quite happy that I got more time to enjoy myself here. I started chatting with the Chinook crew member as he told how it was a total mess at Hierirlark as there were flight after flights of jet's and choppers going out, there was a rumour that a pilot was downed in the mountain and an S&R operation was going on but there was no confirmation. Well I couldn't do anything about the matter so there was no use getting riled up. Then we continued talking as we talked about everything from politics to weather and films to news channel's. Soon the chopper was half empty and as we were getting crates out, the talking pal I had suddenly raised a new topic.

"Did you know that a horrible accident happened yesterday, some guy had fallen off and almost died from bleeding from a big ass wound! And more so we got the whole thing recorded, apparently the radio were still broadcasting as the whole ordeal happened. It sounded like the world was gonna end as the radio had desperate cries coming over and some guys went bat-shit insane during the event! Almost all our flights eardrums were going to blow as we heard the shout of some fellow, he didn't sounded like he was an instructor but boy after hearing him we all were shaking in our boots despite being in a warm room, he called for medical kit and more, it looked like the rescue was over but when he told the situation to the people around him we were shocked on hearing the situation..." The guy went on about the 'Berserk Medic' or as I knew the guy was Aaron, he told in detail what conspired, I had forgotten to switch my radio so it was me who broadcasted the whole thing but my lips were shut on the matter, there was no need to flatter myself and Aaron would be uncomfortable with the sudden attention directed towards him, well now the guy was getting famous fast and we didn't even knew the reason the girls had! We continued chatting as we unloaded the cargo, It took half an hour to unload all the stuff but it was mainly because Cherry wanted the stuff piled up in order. I bid farewell to the unloader who had given me company as the CH-47 took off. After the down-wash of the rotors had died we all went towards Cherry as of now she was the only one handling the task. I was in total despair as Cherry was about to speak and it was most likely going to be about 'getting stuff where it belongs',

"OK the 6 of you guys can rest while Ciel and her group gets the supplies to the corresponding places." They slacker's had weird faces as Cherry commanded them to lift the supplies, they had fun for long enough and now it was time to work.

"Hey Mark, Aaron, Edward, anybody, please help us out!, the canteen is almost on the other side of the camp!" Right now there were cries of help but they fell on deaf ears, same as had happened before. We were sitting in a corner as we happily laughed and giggled looking at the faces of people transporting the supplies, we got a bit of satisfaction but then we started chatting between our group. I talked about what I had heard about the air base from the chopper crew, people looked concerned for a while but Hierirlark had one of the best S&R teams in Osea so there was no use fretting over the matter. As we chatted we got to know that we had a ton of crates that were filled with entertainment and luxury stuff, a few eyes were raised at the fact but then we all broke in a smile and got up and started rummaging through the supplies, it startled Cherry as she came running over.

"Hey what are you all guys doing?" She tried to stop us but then Aaron had found something interesting, very interesting indeed. He shoved a badminton racket at her and passed us all one each as he got 2 case of badminton shuttle's out, The winds were quiet tonight and the badminton and shuttles were glow in the dark so there was no problem it being almost night. Soon we found the 'glow in the dark' net and thanked the base commander for being so generous, We moved to near out tents and setted up the net.

"So what are the rules?" It was Peter who had asked the group how were we going to play, I was thinking it will be like a normal game but then Rodriguez answered.

"Fall counts, no game or set just points." We agreed to the proposition as it would be more fun that way, then we started dividing the teams, there were 7 people present here so we were going to have an extra member, Cherry was insistent to leave but Peter taunted her

"I though girls were strong or maybe stronger than us boys!" With the simple taunt Cherry was fired up.

"Oh! Now you did it, let me show you your place." We had some fire lit here as we all smiled at Cherry and Peter staring at each other, Then we decided to form teams, we needed two captains but we already knew who they were going to be, By default Peter and Cherry were captains, Peter took Christ and Rodriguez while Cherry got me, Aaron and Mark. Soon them Cherry went to the left side while team Peter went to the right. I was a bit happy that we had the numerical advantage but that was negated by the fact that we didn't knew that Cherry and we three would be able to cooperate, Well the green squad girls held high regards for the person so it would be fine.

"I am really sorry for the delayed introductions, I am Cherry!" Soon we got an introduction to which Aaron and me replied politely but Mark had other plans

"Hello I am Mark, something you all nuggets call an 'instructor' around this place." The girls looked frozen with fear as she got to know that Mark was an instructor and when he continued Aaron and I tried hard to control our laughter.

"By the way the other two members from that team are also instructors!" Mark told as he pointed towards Christ and Rodriguez, who replied by idiotically by waving their arms. There was a stupid look of disbelieve on her face as Mark went on.

"Still don't believe it? OK you two hit the ground and give me 50." We both instantly jumped down, it was what made the difference between 'instructor' giving order and a friend trying to mess around, well it was both in this case but as we finished our push-ups the look on Cherry's face was just plain stupid. She thought that the devils trio were nuggets and was now at a loss of words, we had a hard time calming her down and getting her to drop the formalities but it sure was fun. Then we started our game, the first to serve was Cherry from our team, it was a beautiful opening as the shot went straight in the middle of the three standing there but instead of all three running at the shot only Rodriguez took it while Peter was back-up, in-case he missed or wind made the trajectory sway. The sound of the racket hitting was pretty solid as the shot went high in the sky, it was gonna ba a tough one but then Mark shouted.

"ITS MINE!"

"COVER'

It was followed by Aaron as back-up. The shot was falling near the net so it was a close one and I thought Mark was going to blast the shuttle into space as he stuck it, the other's saw it as a cue as even they started hitting the shuttle so hard that feathers were falling off it, the shuttle blasted back and forth until all feathers were gone and only the head remained, Cherry looked disappointed at the play of brute force and told us all to play with grace. It was good to see her talking normally and she was right, if we went on like this we would be through all the shuttles in 10 minutes. The serve was Peters and he struck the shuttle pretty hard, Cherry made an annoyed face but still returned the serve, Christ showed mercy as he struck the shuttle politely and Mark followed suit, we went on like this with Peter occasionally making a hard hit. As we looked for opportunities for our first point but there were none, while Peter was a bit careless in the play it was covered by the instructors with him, Soon Peter struck the shuttle again and sent it high in the sky, As I was about to move Aaron suddenly crouched on his knee and yelled.

"PLATFORM, UP!" I couldn't waste the opportunity as I ran and using Aaron's shoulder as a stepping platform I jumped high in the air and smashed the shuttle down, It went through and struck the snow and we had opened our account and taken the lead.

"Nice work fellas!" It was Mark patting mine and Aaron's back as we got thumbs up from the other side of the net. It was loser's serve so the shuttle was in Rodriguez's hand, as he prepared to shoot Peter had crouched like Aaron had and Christ was coming from the back, we knew what was going to happen. Rodriguez shot the shuttle vertically as Christ had jumped, as the shuttle hanged a bit in air after expending its momentum Christ had a shot which was better then mine, It went towards Cherry, I was a bit surprised when she yelled.

"SIR!" The rocket shuttle lost all the momentum after being deflected towards Mark, Mark shot the shuttle the other side as he spoke.

"Please don't call me sir, makes me feel feel like an old man." After the comment our game heated up, we pulled stunts after stunts and tricks after tricks, Cherry could not participate as by the time she responded the shot was gone but still we all enjoyed the game. It was a draw as we stopped the game at 4-4, we could go on but it had been almost 2 hours of non-stop action filled play and it was getting pretty late in the night. Then we searched for the remaining gang and found them sitting in a canteen with a portable projector watching a film, the credits were rolling by the time we arrived. We were going to pack up shop as Mark spoke up.

"Hey wait up, we need to discuss something." He sounded pretty serious when he called us. We sat around on the bench as the talks started.

"Well after observing that this camp has a tendency to go rampant I propose taking some supplies with us." It was a good proposition but Aaron, I and Christ were a bit uncomfortable, we had already buried ton's of supplies beforehand near our tent and we still had the kits we packed at the airbase, we came prepared for war but looking at the current situation I don't think we were were gonna have any proper combat exercise and to hammer the point, we had the protocols amended so much that all we needed to do was laze around the remaining days. We discussed what to take and how much to take, we decided to take bare minimum needed. We took one gun with both additional modules for each person, some clips and ready to eat rations. I was embarrassed as if the others found out that we had already done the thing we would be treated as professional stupid. We were tired so we just went back into our tents and slept.

The next day I was the first one to wake up or so I thought. I rubbed my eyes as I got out of the tent, careful to avoid disturbing any of the sleeping. We all slept separately but due to the cold temperature we would move a bit closer and after waking up we would find ourselves in a weird formation. Today Peter was chewing on Mark's foot and Andrew was wrapping his jacket like a pipe around him. Christ was sleeping separately while Rodriguez had his hand buried under Christ's leg. Well it like this in the morning but only Aaron would be missing, he was and early riser up around 4. Right now he was standing outside the tent staring at apparently nowhere but with a bit of more attention you could see him doing the scan of the area with a sharp look, like a bird of prey looking out on its territory, I was pretty amazed daily by the fact that Aaron got up at 4 without a hitch usually, it was quite something as here in the mountains one can get very lazy and as I live in a city metropolitan city, the life is more based to wards night than day so I usually went to sleep around 11 and woke up around 8 to 9 so the time shift to wake up at four was a bit harsh at first.

"You always get up early!, what's your secret?" As I joked around with the fact the Aaron was always up early and there was no stopping him. He joked back

"Well it is a superpower granted to me so that I can avoid being ragged right in the morning."

"Please share it with me." Well Aaron was a cool person to be with as he didn't pull any smart one's and humiliated me like the others, I do return the favour in kind but still a break is always appreciated from all the bad-mouthing. I thought it was an important news that Aaron was now popular as the 'Berserk Medic' in the airbase, the cool and sharp observing look was changed to a stupid one, he was the quiet kind as he didn't like to socialize much and this sounded trouble for him. I enjoyed the panicking by the early bird for about three minutes until the gang started getting up.

"Hey what's so important that you guys had to kill our sweet time?" As Mark came out, he sounded sleepy despite being an instructor but there was nothing I could say or more accurately didn't want to say as I didn't wanted to provoke the 'wrath' and awaken Mark's demon form, which roughly translates to Mark grabbing a gun and chasing me all over the camp just like yesterday, which I wanted to avoid at all cost as my back still remembered the rounds hitting it. Soon all the boys were up and there was soon a scuffle between us on a pointless matter. I grabbed Andrews and gave a few 'thwacks' on his head as he had in-turn grabbed Peters and was holding him by the collars shaking him like a lunatic. Peter made a comeback by grabbing Andrews collar and shaking him like crazy, Andrews grabbed my collar and brought me down, I then grabbed both of their legs and pulled them down with me. Instead of closing in Peter and me made some distance as Andrew grabbed and made two snow balls.

"Hey, we agreed no snow in the morning." Well instead of freezing you when a snowball hits you as we were already in a cold place, it gives a decent impact whit a stinging after effect if it struck on the skin and it struck both Peter and me in the face. As I exchanged glances with Peter to confirmed we was as pissed as the other was we ran in a slightly crouching stance towards Andrew and grabbed his leg, one each and we dragged him around the snow for a while, Andrew wanted to say something but snow was in his mouth. As we stopped near our tent Andrew was spitting snow and water out of his mouth as he held his head, looked like the guy had some old case of 'Brain Freeze', it wasn't smart to open his mouth while being dragged. As he recovered we started exchanging creative language, the one some kid would use.

"You two damn Ape's, did nothing better came to your mind to pull?" I was very offended with the new name, Edward 'Ape' Abernathy, it didn't gave a perfect ring but still it struck, I would hate to have it as me call-sign but that was thinking way ahead in the future.

"Yeah cuz' the snowball hit on our face had limited our thinking capacity, We decided on the policy 'No Snowballs In The Morning As They Make You Feel Like Shit' but still you had to go the length to pull the stunt and hit us right in the face!" Peter was right as we argued with Andrew on the matter, but it was useless as we were then fighting each other again. Aaron was facing away from us while the remaining gang was pretty content watching us. We would have gone like this the whole day but...

"What an energetic start right in the morning, what are you guys? Little kids?." As the comment came towards us I saw the whole group of green squad girls with Cherry coming out of a big tent beside us, I remember it was set up because our tent looked crowded with our kits and other stuff and we all would not fit in it but I thought that it would be kept back after its use was over. Andrew, Peter and I left each other as acting like this in front of the girls looked embarrassing.

"We moved here as our tent was messed up in the mess yesterday and we are safer here if anything happens again." With the simple reply we were explained the sudden shift here, It was fun to have more friends to be with, and who were we to say anything. We went to the 'Frozen Canteen' to start our day and had a fun time, James was with us who was usually cooped up in the command center all day long to monitor activity in the field was with us. It was no use to be 'Vigilant' any-more, there was literally no use, yesterday the supplies were full of luxuries like outdoor games like football, soccer, badminton which we played yesterday and many more. For those who were not interested in outdoor play, there was a projector with films, a lot of films and other form of entertainment. All the stuff combined with the severely relaxed rules would result in people not giving a single damn about the 'exercise', you could say it was more like a vacation. We then played some badminton as playing soccer and football would be troublesome in all the snow. After playing badminton till mid-day we had lunch and then we watched some movie. It was a parody about how the politicians worked, While a politician called to launch nuke as a solution to every single thing, from domestic to international the solution remained the same. While the solution for piracy in the ocean was arming every ship in the nation with lazer and arm every single sailor to the teeth so that the pirates could be showed how things were done. The film was full with the stuff as I laughed at all the ridiculous things that happened one after another. In the evening we lighted a camp fire and were telling stories, scary ones until it was time to sleep. A few days were left for the exercise to finish and it would have been the same situation at Alpha base, why the hell would you wanted to waste this opportunity by freezing out in the cold while you could enjoy yourself in your base camp. My motto was now to enjoy myself to the most and if something comes up, follow standard procedure and pass the blame on others. I really enjoyed today and there was nothing stopping us now from doing the same tomorrow, We were all exited today so we chatted a bit before sleeping.

"Hey Mark, Where are you from?" James asked it out of the blue, even I didn't knew there the instructors were from so the question had my attention.

"Well I am from the capital." I expected him to tell some remote location as he didn't looked like he was very hi-tech, but when our instructor's told us that they all were from the capital and knew each other before they joined up for armed forces. We all continued until we got at a certain topic.

"OK now the main question, How and what do you like about the opposite gender?" After Andrew had softly asked the question because just beside us we had some girls staying there was a pause before Rodriguez answered.

"You need to have a girl before you could like something about them!, how the hell we would know!? And you talk like you are some ladies man like James." A perfect counter that sent Andrew flying, it was the truth but we ignored the topic and moved foward.

"What's you favourite actress?" It was Peter this time and it was a good question, I was thinking as Christ answered.

"One that is sexy and single!" It was the perfect reply to which all of us agreed.

"Thing that you hate the most in the world?" It was me asking and with the mood I guessed what the answered would be.

"You!" It was Andrew who answered. Now it was Christ who had specifically asked Aaron to anwer.

"What do you want in your life." If it was asked to me I would have started an almost endless list, I thought Aaron would give a meaningful answer but the smile on his face told that he was gonna go with the flow.

"The whole damn world, I'll just sort the stuff I want out later." We all who were giggling broke into laughter. It was just too wise-ass of an answer.

"What do you dislike about your life?" It was Mark asking James, I could tell a lot about what the answer would be.

"The weekends, they are too short!" We were having stomach-ache from laughing too much and took a short break before continuing.

"What is your ideal politician?" It was James asking me, the reply was simple.

"The same as the ones we saw in the film, Pure crazy filled with productive ideas!" The next was Mark asking Rodriguez

"What is the best gun in the world?"

"Obviously the one I could shoot with!" We went on like this, I was a bit worried that we would disturb our neighbours but we were not ready to stop. We chatted on and on until we a dropped down tired and slept like a baby.


	13. The carefree 'Exercise'

**The carefree 'Exercise'**

I didn't got to know when we all suddenly slept but last night was hilarious, some lines were lame while others were plain crazy and outright funny. I already knew that the devils trio were bat-shit crazy and tough as nails instructors but when I see them messing around with us, no one can tell the difference between them and us nuggets, they are only a few years older than us but yet have an aura around them that tells that they have a lot of experience with them or it's just my messed up brain seeing things. I was feeling re-freshened this morning and decided to pass on coffee, just had some water from packed mineral bottle. I wanted to move out but there was a storm blowing outside, and as I was looking out the tent all the radio's suddenly came to life.

"...There is a storm blowing...inside..." The voice was not clear and the transmission was broken but there was no need to listen to the whole broadcast, It was just a warning to stay where you were. The storm was not a world killer but it certainly reduced visibility, I instantly closed the opening so the cold would not enter but it was too late and all the residents were woken up.

"Abernathy, do you hold some grudge against us sleeping? Or do you want to watch us shiver like some dumb little kids movie villain?" First thing in the morning was me getting curse's and booing, when I told them about the storm they calmed down a bit before giving me a good 'wack' on my head!

"If you knew that there was a storm blowing outside then why did you still opened the tent?" It was James who was looking very annoyed, hey you are an aristocrat or something and you were supposed to be the most civilized here!

"Well how would I know about he storm without looking!" There was silence after my comment, the tent's fabric was shaking and the storm was blowing in full force, winds howling sound clearly audible. As I looked towards my comrade's, there were just angry looking grins on there face and all of them were cracking their knuckles, I was then bashed like a... I don't know a punching bag or something for full 10 minutes before the tent opened again and some people came in, I thanked god for this timely intervention. Aaron and Mark were holding some big flask in their hands, I was too occupied from being beaten then I failed to notice the two missing.

"You all are having fun here while we both worked our ass off to get coffee back! Do you know what have we been through you freak?" It was Mark and he looked like he was going to go back outside but we all begged him to share the coffee with us, It suddenly came to my notice that I had been begging a lot for coffee these days but there was no shame in it, especially here at the 'Mount Dry Freeze', If dancing like a lunatic got me coffee where my bed was right in the morning, I would gladly do it, of course I was smart enough to not speak my thought's out. We all got our cups of coffee filled as we sat around in a circle listening to Mark.

"I was pretty cozy in my sweet dream's when suddenly I was being shaken by Aaron, I asked him what the hell was wrong as he replied, 'Hurry up or we are going to be in deep trouble'. I was still feeling a bit lethargic but got up and ran behind Aaron, I wanted to literally kick all of your asses looking at you content faces sleeping but there was no time, Aaron said that there was a storm on its way and if we delayed any longer it would be hard to get back here. We then ran all the way to the canteen and scrambled to make coffee, As I worked and at the same time questioned why heck was all the commotion right in the morning!? The bastard here didn't utter a word, there was no need, Soon the place was filled with maniacs running all over the place. In the end it turned out that all the rush was because some people wanted coffee in their bed."

We all kept nodding our head from time to time as we sipped our coffee, I didn't care about all that happened, all I knew was there was hot coffee in my hands and that was all I needed to know. We could go to the main camp with no problem but decided to laze around in our tent for the day. We had all the things we would need right here. We chatted about how the exercise had become more 'enjoyable'

"What do we do now?" It was a simple question, we had all day long to pass here and we were discussing what to do when Aaron opened his stuff, brought out two boxes, he kept one aside and threw the other in the middle of our group.

"I brought some games just in case" None of us question from where the brand new and humongous box came but ripped open the packaging plastic sheet and saw what was inside, there were 24 thick plastic sheets with different game boards printed on them, below the sheet was all the necessary items. Chess pieces, tokens, chips, coloured pieces and many more. We browsed through the box and started picking out our choices, Aaron and James picked up chess board and pieces and went away in a corner. Mark brought out the ludo board but it could only accommodate 4 players, Andrew and I were about to search for a new game when Christ pulled out 'snakes and ladders', It was a classic which we all knew how to play. We then decided the rules for the game.

"6 and 1 calls for another extra roll." It was a good idea to speed up the game

"Can capture pieces"

"Capture pieces go to the start point"

"Need to roll 1 or 6 to start" The suggestions were pouring in but the game was getting same as with the standard rules and it was not fun enough so we added more custom rules.

"Got to throw dice in this mug" with the suggestion the mug was kept a bit away from the board, we all grinned like idiots and gave the approval to Peters suggestion.

"If dice falls out the person loses his turn and the dice is passed to the next." It was Christ calling out and the game was getting interesting by the minute. After that Rodriguez got out a pack of cards and spread 1 to 6, two set black and two set red and gave his suggestion

"After the turn pull a card, if red move back and black moves forward." After we were quite satisfied with the game Rodriguez added again after pulling out two king and queen, one black and one red each.

"Black king, you can set a condition on one next to you, if queen set a condition on one before you. Red king and the one next to you impose a condition on you, queen does the same but from the one behind you." Now it was an exciting game here, we all scrambled to get our colour pieces, I got brown, Peter had green, Andrew was black, Mark had yellow, Rodriguez was red while Christ was dark green. We sat in the order of Mark, Rodriguez, Peter, Andrew, Christ, then me and Mark was the first to play.

"Here I come." Mark made a pose and threw his dice, it went straight in the mug but too bad he had 4, next he drew his card and it came out 1 red, he looked quite happy until we told him that only black 1 or 6 would help him, we made the rule from the logic that red is a negative card so it should not help, Mark looked dejected and cursed us all for the sudden one pulled against him. The next was Rodriguez

"Let me show you how a true player plays!" We all condemned him for pulling a bluff but when the dice came out as 1, we were shocked. He took another throw and now it was 5 and with the black card 1 he was on square 6, 6 square ahead of us all. It was a good start but it was just luck so It was not a major issue, Peter was out of luck when his dice fell on the rim of the mug and bounced out, All of us laughed at him until he drew a 6 card, He was ready to take another turn but we told him that a card can help move and impose conditions but will not bring another turn, If we could help it, we weren't going to give any advantage to anyone. Next was Andrew, his turn was pretty good as he rolled 6 and 4 with the dice but drew a red queen, Peter smiled thinking of something when he spoke.

"Next dice throw blind folded" It was something that normally would be considered crazy but Andrew smiled and agreed like a true sports man or just someone who had lost it after being drunk on caffeine. Andrew was blind folded and he still smiled like an idiot when he threw the dice, It all looked extremely stupid until the dice went in. Too bad it was 3 but still it was quite a feat to throw in the dice blind folded! The card he got was a black queen and now Peter looked like he was in big trouble as Andrew was looking plain evil.

"Next throw will be done with back facing the mug" It was near impossible and Peter did protest but it was of no use, he had asked something same in his turn and the thought was intriguing to see someone throw like that, we had quarrel's for about half an hour where the topic from the 'Back Throw' was reduced to very redundant issues, mostly exchanging very smartly placed abuses and it was the chess player's who told us to sod off. After we had settled it was Christ's turn, He didn't looked happy when he threw the dice but he had 1 in the first throw followed by a 5, with a red 1 card he had to retreat a step, Rodriguez looked like a pale, sick person who just had a close brush from being captured. We carried on like this but as the game got further, the condition imposed were more 'blizzard' and the 'Creative Language' was being raised to new heights.

"Ha-ha, Fuck you Mark, down with the yellow's!"

"Don't worry Red Rod, I'll make sure you regret doing this."

"Damn it Andrew, did you break out of circus or something?"

"Nah Ed, I'm just better than you all."

After all the commotion we raised up, I was pretty sure that Aaron and James were going to kill us as they came near our group but we found out that their game ended in a draw, with only kings remaining on both side so it was useless to move them over and over again, We invited them to play with us but were simply refused as the two decided to be observers. The game continued to reach new heights, bowling throw, dancing after the turns end and what not it went on and we looked like a bunch of primates who have discovered fire. There was no expression to define my mental state when the girls came into our tent, I was stunned same as the other's, feeling ashamed

"Yeah you asshole's I'm in lead now!"

Clearly Peter didn't took any cue from arrival of the guest's but now he was showing off, We all returned the favor by returning a few curse's and abuses back, captured his piece and he had to skip two turns before he could throw. Now the curses were just bizarre.

"...May god never let you bastards taste any fast food and burger's haunt your dream"

From his curses, he looked like he considered it more important to starve us of any fast food than anything else

"Yeah and then may devil make sure that you only get to eat the meals at 'Mount Dry Freeze' only, for the rest of you life." The comment was a bit harsh but Rodriguez had struck bulls eye as it made Peter shut up and skip a beat.

"Hell it ain't happening, even the devil disapproves of it, more than a curse it is a torture and violation of human rights and..." Peter was in full throttle as he spat of the sentence which turned into a long mindless rant.

"Then denying us pizza... What the hell? When did Christ came to the finish? Hey you little cheating ass!? What's this!?" As Rodriguez was saying something about pizza he suddenly started running his mouth like crazy, 'little cheating ass'? Got to give some appraise here to the vocabulary, I saw Christ cover the last 11 steps by getting a 5 with the dice and drawing 6 in the card yet still I joined in the argument. In the end Christ agreed to pull back but be given another chance, We did know that he had won fair and square and to soften our guilt we agreed with him. Then the dice was thrown, first a 6 then a 5 and it was game over, no need to argue about anything now. We could have continued playing but we lost all our willpower as Christ had won, again! And we packed all the stuff. The tent was big but it was not the 'Party hall big' but 'Camping big' so with 16 people in it the place felt almost cramped but there was no problem, The storm went on till 4 in the noon and it was a hell of a time waiting in the tent so the first thing we did was make a break to the supplies and get something to play, We decided that badminton was good enough but

"You boys are really pushing the limits, what do you think girls can't handle something serious?" The girl squad looked pissed off with choosing badminton as a sign of 'Sexism' and gender discrimination, I was at a lost to what to say as they looked like they were serious and was going to try and pacify the situation when something plain simple happened. Mark was looking towards Rodriguez as he gave a nod and then Mark dropped 7 rackets and walked back like nothing happened.

"You girls are free to play any game you like but we are gonna play badminton no matter what!" After a statement on which Mark and Christ were giggling Rodriguez turned and spoke again

"OK guys we have lost 7 players because they think they are too good to play some plain old badminton so we are going to have one extra in a team." Rodriguez was talking like an instructor right now and it worked wonders, Ivy followed by the whole group grabbed one racked each and lined up requesting to be allowed to play.

"You nuggets think badminton is a game made for sissies and wussies, and playing it is a gender discrimination, Eh? Why don't you all be a good sport and grab a howitzer to play cannon ball as anything less than that is a disgrace to you right?" We all were trying hard not to laugh, right now Rodriguez was reminding these people who he was. Mark was standing beside me and suddenly a question struck me, was it possible to just jump on a wagon and suddenly enlist for pilot training, skipping basic training? They were monsters all right but still there were a ton of things that you needed to do to be eligible.

"Hey why did you three decided to become fighter pilots suddenly?" It was a stupid sounding but a serious question, If the matter of suddenly being able to join pilot training is overlooked there still is one major thing to be considered, That...

"Do you have the determination and passion to really become a pilot, right?" My question was answered by Mark, before I even asked them! Was I that predictable or is Mark an alien?

"Asking question like 'Why' and 'Suddenly' were enough to tell me what you were going to ask next, Hey close your mouth you freaking primate you look too stupid" I suddenly noticed that not only my mind was blank but even my mouth was open and you could make a bird nest in it! As soon as I came back to my senses I pulled myself together, I had yet to hear an answer

"Well I won't beat around the bush, From the Belkan war to the Aurelian war, all the kids knew that there were some badass aces here and there. Cartoons, films, animations, documentary and what not are made on aces, When you go into a game store you can find 10 games on fighter pilot or anything related to a plane for every shooter game out there so I can say that being a fighter pilot was a dream for me once but... Lets say I had skills in the field of being an 'instructor' so I happily rip people apart as my profession. Now a days the 'Wanna be a fighter pilot' craze is reaching new heights, nobles, powerful and the rich all are running to grab a seat in a cockpit then why should we stay behind? Its not just curiosity but a desire." Mark had said some heavy stuff here so I shuttled my trap stood quietly until he spoke again

"Or its just because being called a 'pilot' sounds cooler than being called an 'instructor'." Very funny but yeah, after thinking a little it makes a lot of sense. After Rodriguez was done lecturing we decided to split teams

"How 'bout Girls vs Boy... Ehe-Ehe, Sorry!" Right now Ivy was being stared at by the whole group and Rodriguez had a poker-face.

"Fine" An unconcerned tone from Rodriguez was pitiable but then we didn't had the patience for dramatics, we decided that Mark and Ida will be the captains, Ida was the first to choose

"Cherry!"

"Christ the Monk"

"Um... Ciel!"

"Mr Hot-shot, I mean Rod-shot" Rodriguez looked pissed but didn't bother speaking out.

"Dana"

"Aaron the heavy"

"Yay!,Ivy"

"Pe... No he's too dumb, 'Ape'ernathy!"

"OK I'll take him if you wont"

"I think I shout take a girl now, Hm... OK you there! Hey Christ what's her ..."

"Anna."

"Alright then Anna"

"James! Yay we have him in our team!"

"Andrew the fool, Get your ass over here!"

"Gloria"

"Wha..."

"Aby" Even before Mark could ask Christ answered him, It looked a bit rude but Mark didn't give a single thought to the fact.

"OK Aby! Looks like we are gonna kick some ass'es today!"

"Careful or you might be the one on the receiving end!"

Today after chatting with the girls one misconception I had was cleared, Girls are no different than boys, well some of them. Only a few act in a reserved and polite manner like in the anecdotes people tell while most of them are tough as nails, well it was to be expected as we are joining armed forces but still. After we had taken our position it was Rodriguez who was going to start the game, he took a serving position and made a few practice swings.

"IN THE NAME OF MARKUS MAXIMUS FUCTARDUS, I SHALL SERVE THIS BLOW TO THY FOE'S" Suddenly shouting all that was surprising but then Andrew joined him.

"ALL HAIL FUC-TARD-US, ALL HAIL FUC-TARD-US" All the guys joined in to praise the name of the almighty, I expected to see Marks face in agony but he was standing there with hands on his waist and head held high, he was really enjoying all this. The response was that Rodriguez and Andrew started shouting even louder. After a while it got boring as Mark was not one bit affected by all the ruckus and we had a game to play, then in an instant Mark came behind his two 'Loyal Servants' and gave a nice kick to Rodriguez and followed by a 'without any starting run' haymaker to Andrew, grabbed the shuttle and gave the serve

"Sorry humble beings, my followers are a bit too loyal to me" All we could do was laugh at the sight of Rodriguez and Peter getting snow out of their mouths. As the game began, Ida's team looked very happy as they had taken the lead by 2-0 but then the devils trio smiled and it had been a while since I saw them smile like that, It was the very smile that still sent a small chill down my spine despite enduring all the training. In the end our team won, by the score of us 14 and them 2, it was scary to see that the other team hadn't even scored once afterwards and I didn't even touched the shuttle once, same for Aby, Anna and Andrew. Aaron just returned once so you could count him in on the 'Didn't do a thing' group. The aftermath of the match was, 16 broken rackets, 50 shuttles broken and the reason for the end of the match was that we ran out of shuttles and to get more we had to search the supplies. All we could do was to pass remarks at the looser.

"We were supposed to be at the receiving end of some ass kicking, what happened?" the opposing team was so heart broken that they couldn't even utter a word and all they did was stare at the devils trio with the team leader who was almost about to cry out. I really felt sorry but there was no use consoling them

"We're gonna get you next time!" with spirits recovered there was a challenge of a rematch, which was decided to be never held by the devils trio. We were tired and the radio spoke up that another storms on the way so we better hole ourselves in the nearest safe place we could find so we did the most sane thing and went to the supplies and got ourselves our ready to eat rations and hurried back to our tents. First thing we did after arriving was grab a seat and started opening out the boxes, they were different than before so we were exited. The old boxes were good but most of it was paste, cream paste, green paste, bean paste, everything paste and you had one pouch of 'Add some water and enjoy' drink, there were others too like chicken, beef and more but were mostly old and about 3 months from expiry, makes you think whether to praise or curse. Its not that Hierirlark was a small base that was devoid of amenities, you had shops, food stalls and what not. The Officers bar was one of the most talked about topic between the trainees but after my first experience with alcohol, I would probably avoid it. So the question is why are trainees given such godforsaken stuff? It is because of the motto of upper echelons 'There ain't no luxuries in war', what is the point in it, we pilots were going to fly over and not be 'In-The-Face' with the enemies! Its just now during the joint exercise we are given something decent, probably because if not, all the branches in the future will hate the upper echelons more than the enemies. I was deep in my train of thought as I opened my box

"Hey Edward, taste and tell how's it like!"

It was Peter and almost all of the group were looking at me with observant eyes, like I was an experiment done to avoid collateral damage. I felt pissed at the situation but decided to ignore them. It was called an 'Improved' MRE ration, it was labelled 'Basic' so I wondered what it meant, after opening the package the box was big, about 900 grams and inside it were main course, side dish, soldier fuel, wheat cracker, a cream spread in a paste form packed in a tube, a powdered energy drink mix, a flameless ration heater, a mix between a spoon and a fork also called a 'spork' and an accessory bag. The box had some raised places in it, after turning it inside out I found that the box could be used as a plate or at least to it resembled a plate. What was to wait for as I did as it was written in there, Placed the main course and the side course in the FLH pouch and add some water and leave it for 12-14 minutes. Next was the wheat cracker, I had some cream on it and munched away, it was very crispy and tasty and the cream had some herb flavor mixed in it so there were no complains. The energy drink pouch was a bit intriguing as if you wanted you could mix the drink in another container but you could also pour some water in it. Before anything I could do a water bottle was passed along, all my friends had their eyes glittering as I mixed the drink and the aroma spread out, I felt like a magician but then even more delightful aroma's suppressed the drinks, chicken, beef and beans filled the tent. I hadn't open mine so after a quick look we found the three instructors happily eating while telling Aaron something. The rest of the party couldn't wait as all scrambled to have their meals ready. There was still a few minutes till the flameless heater did its job so I hurried towards Aaron and called Christ, whispered lightly

"Hey did we bring these with us before?"

"Nope" It was Christ to reply as I got dejected but than Aaron spoke

"But we have these in the supplies we three got"

It was all I needed to hear, I rushed back as I saw the others near my flameless heater and told them to scram, if even one second I wasted all my meal would have vanished. I enjoyed the chicken with some asparagus and finished the meal with a soldier fuel and an energy drink. I was quite satisfied with the meal, to be more precise I wanted to ask Aaron to help me get more from our 'Hidden Cache' but knew that it would then be emptied if the people got the wind of it. As I opened the accessory bag I noticed there was a tube near the box, probably mine. The meal was awesome so I didn't wait a second as I ripped open the cap and ate all the stuff inside

"WAIT EDWARD, DON'T" There was a sudden scream from Rodriguez when suddenly all the taste buds in my tongue suddenly gave a signal to my brain, which was 'This is Hierlark stuff, concentrated exponentially!'. Then what happened was that I lost vision and almost went to the other side.


	14. Something wrong

**Something wrong**

Sitting here in my office and sipping coffee, It felt pretty good and being the base commander of hierirlark, it felt pretty damn good. There are no superiors nagging or giving orders or any trouble happening...

"Commander you need to see this"

What was the hurry, was it so necessary to think of trouble? But still being posted here is like you have won a lottery, of course you need to have a skill called 'Passing Work Around' and the secretary will take care of most of the stuff.

"Coming in a sec"

With the ridiculous training exercise going on, by the way did the nuggets enjoy the stuff I sent? I wanted to send some black dogs but only vodka was available at hand so it was a bit disappointing but who will complain? The staff here was very pissed about the fact the trainees were being treated so well and had I not prepared beforehand I was as good as dead. Very few matters are required for me to attend so it was a bad day for me, as I approached the room with the plaque 'Operations' I sighed deeply.

"Somebody get me the report on..."

"Did you get the documents?"

It was a total mess with everyone shouting here and there, Yep it took a helluva lot people just to make sure that the nuggets got hot coffee when they woke and what a ruckus my secretary made when the Bravo and Alpha camp went crazy and started shooting same team. Before anything else I could notice there was a shout calling for me.

"Oh! Commander you decided to show up?" It was my secretary Matt, usually if a normal secretary does this he is bound to be fired, oh yes it would be a whole another thing if the secretary was a nice girl and I might be more active but then I wouldn't find someone better than Matt, the guy basically is the boss around here who manages every thing and only one for me to fear after the girls. He called me to a corner of the room and before I could ask

"Operation Juda has encountered some problem"

* * *

It was like a bad dream for me when I woke up, looks like I was out for the whole night and god knows what happened but my tongue felt like it had met with something horrible. I got up and saw all the guys sleeping with ready to eat ration packs all over the place. We are supposed to get fresh meal and A grade meal with the ready to eat rations but the hierirlark's speciality had kind of overshadowed them. I sighed as I remembered how I fainted after eating something from the tube that I had missed out. All the sleeping beauties had smile on their faces, I wonder why? I got to collecting the ration packets and throw them out. It was real nice that they were 'Bio-Degradable' which roughly translated to 'Just throw em away after use' and I did just that and it was quite convenient actually as there was still a storm blowing outside. As I closed the tent, I heard some knuckles cracking. I slowly turned around and saw the whole party awake with the grins still on their face, angry grins. I was still a bit groggy and didn't knew what was going on but only one thing came to my mind

'Looking for a fight cuz I got some'

The first to jump on me was Peter and he got a nice counter right in his stomach. The second was James, he threw a straight punch as he was still now awake, I shifted aside dodging his punch and gave one to his face, now he really was awake before dropping down, knocked out. The last was Andrews and he aimed straight for the stomach, It was a good thing to do on his part as stomach was an 'Un-Reinforced' area and therefore you could easily do a follow up attack as there was no pain in your fist when you try to strike some bones like James had tried and I did. My right hand still itched a bit so I used it to parry the strike and then used my left to strike the side of his head. I know I just thinked how foolish it was to hit some bones but a good strike to the head was enough to knock someone out, like I had just now. Before me were three idiots down on the floor, the devils trio were laughing after seeing the whole thing but as the were not fighting it was fine by me. Then I crawled back into my warm bag and went to sleep.

"What the hell, why does my head hurt so much?" After waking up it was the first thing I heard, I didn't knew what had happened but I kinda felt good sleeping. It was not the whining about the 'Heads Hurting like Hell' but an appetizing smell of food. It was Aaron enjoying a veg burrito and suddenly there were three hounds after him

"Give me some!"

"No, Pass some here"

"I'm here buddy!"

Andrew, Peter and James were jokingly demanding a share while reaching out for the burrito while Aaron, a bit panicked moved his hand holding the burrito away from the three while the remaining hand and both legs were struggling to keep the three at bay.

"I'll be taking this, Nom... It's quite good, Nom-Nom..." With three bites the burrito was gone and it was Rodriguez who was the criminal. He was looking quite happy and cheerful until the 4 people who were competing for the burrito came up.

"Sir, would you be kind enough to explain yourself!" It was Aaron being a bit formal but what was more scary was that he was cracking his knuckle's, the sound was now sounding pretty familiar now a days. The thing was while we could beat a helluva nuggets in the batch same as us, Aaron could beat the 'us' in combat and easily send us into afterlife! The main reason for this was his built was heavier than our, If we looked like we could bench-press with a car, he looked like he could bench-press with a freakin tank! And he can run faster than us while carrying more load than us and I thanked god that he was very docile, usually. Rodriguez could probably handle himself in a one-on-one with Aaron but right now the hound party was backing the big guy.

"Yeah Rod, give Aaron an answer!" With the prompt by Mark it was clear that the he and Christ had joined the fray as it looked fun to them. Right now after looking at his situation Rodriguez knew that it was no use arguing

"Fine I'll get something to eat... Wait we ran out of rations right! Hey there is no way I can go alone in this storm back to the supply depot! Hey this ain't fair!" Rodriguez made quite a ruckus right now. The rations we had previously brought back with the girls were not much and they were depleted right now so we needed to make a trip back to the supply depot to get more stuff to eat... Wait!

"Aaron, looks like we need to draw our cards"

"... Yeah, if we don't the stuff will just be forgotten, fine I'll bring them"

Christ and Aaron talked in a way the other's didn't understand, Mark and Rodriguez raised questions on the talks when suddenly

"We are talking about arranging for food! What else?" Christ was giggling like a kid when Mark spoke up.

"Fine, I won't complain if you guys are kind enough to bring rations back for us but try to hurry" Suddenly the conflicting atmosphere had changed to a expedition like. The current ready to eat rations are nothing like they were before, they were originally meant to be a supplement which was light to carry and had a shelf life of around 3 years. The ready to eat rations were to be eaten for around 21 days until logistics could provide with superior meals, originally there were only a few types available but then as the positive feedback from soldiers came back from the soldiers more effort was put in to introduce more varieties and the result was that there are as many varieties of ready to eat ration as in a restaurant menu, maybe even more. As time passed there was a topic raised, 'Why not make ready to eat rations better?' as the ready to eat rations were a very successful supplement in the field, had a monstrous shelf life, were 'cheap' and 'efficient' if you consider the logistical nightmare it is to manage fresh meals especially in combat theaters and the best thing is you can just para-drop them anywhere you need. While I was thinking about the merits of ready to eat rations a hard hit landed on my head.

"Stop day dreaming and come help us." It was Christ who grabbed my collar afterwards and literally dragged me out.

"IT'S TOO DAMN COLD OUT HERE!" I screamed but it was a bit suppressed by the winds. As Christ and Aaron proceeded without giving notice then even I shrugged off the matter and went near Aaron

"Hey bud, remind me where you kept the stuff as I forgot" I realized that it was a dumb question as the reply was 'Just follow me'. I really wanted to avoid trekking far but we just went behind our tent and started digging, soon we struck our cache. Christ and I patted Aaron's back, this guy was too damn smart! Christ and I grabbed 4 packs each as Aaron grabbed 8 himself, there were still many left in the cache but still

"Hey Aaron, ain't that too much?"

"Eh?"

I decided to leave the matter as we stuffed snow over our cache, the storm would have covered it eventually but then there was no harm in doing it ourselves. As we headed back inside Aaron went further into the girls tent. I was just standing there looking at my friend like a dumb idiot. Aaron had gotten quite well after talking with the girls, well I should say that the girls were understanding enough to see the guys problem and help him out. The only problem is that now Aaron, for some reason is popular between the girls and it stinged quite a bit to me but his docile, straight forward and honest personality made it easy to make friend with him. I suddenly got a pat on my back

"Don't worry, do you really think that the big guy would do something? He probably had honest concerns to do this" With the simple comment by Christ my mind cleared up and we got back in the tent.

"You damn bastards! You had hidden rations somewhere! Give them here!" With some sudden uncalled for curses everyone took a box for himself with Aaron's remaining. We took our sweet time eating and chatting, the devils trio then told us something about the rations, like the earlier rations having the name MRE or Meal Ready to Eat but was changed to RER or Ready to Eat Rations as the MRE was confused with the rifle module but people still prefer to call them MRE with a suffix of rations to avoid confusion. In the past the meals were horrible as they had names like 'Meals Rejected by the Enemies', 'Meals Refusing to Exit' and more.

"Hey, have you guy's ever eaten them?" It was James asking a normal question when all three of them shuddered.

"Listen kid, we ate it only once and I tell you, It makes the grub at Hierlark taste like a five star meal, Most of the instructors here have eaten them." As Christ explained in a serious tone, It kinda explained the fact that the instructors usually enjoy their meals at the air base.

"Yeah and even our instructors, who would make US shake like a freaking tuning fork hated it so much that when they were asked to eat a rations or resign as a joke, they handed in their resignation forms, literally!" There were no further examples required as this was the ultimatum, nuff said.

"There are many types of rations like humanitarian and First strike..." As Rodriguez had finished his meal, he started explaining the different types of ready to eat rations and we all listened like little kids sitting and hearing to their uncles tell them about the history of world.

"If pilots have lighter rations, why are we having the one's same as the ground forces, not that I hate em or anything but just a passing thought." If it was Peter we would have stolen his ration as an answer but James was more of an Intellectual person so Christ seriously answered him.

"Yeah you're right but then if a pilot was shot down, especially behind enemy lines he would need a lot of energy to survive so it was decided to have the same rations for the pilots, we still have the light rations for pilots and aircrew but mostly these rations are preferred, if you want to ask something more then I'll help you contact an instructor pilot to clear things out." Right now it was an informational talk so none of us decided to joke around, Christ was 'Still an Instructor' and despite the fact the devils trio were going to join us in pilot training, they still were more knowledgeable in the field than us. As we were chatting around I noticed that Aaron was taking quite a time to come back

"Hey wait Aaron!" Suddenly we all heard a call from the girls and knew something was wrong!

* * *

Right now I was sitting in a briefing room with Matt briefing me on the matter.

"The S&R UH-60 suddenly went down near the mountain range"

"What do you mean by that?" I was still a bit behind so I wanted to be up-to-date ASAP but the answer came from another person.

"There are hostile forces present there" The person was a colonel, around my age.

"What do you mean to say?" I know I was acting a bit dumb by saying that but then it was me, a bumbling baboon he was dealing with.

"Please don't joke around, There are probably MANPADS in the area." They guy was a bit cold and straight forward, what a kill-joy. He knew it was just a façade I was putting up, It was my men who were down so I was very concerned, when I was briefed that there was an op that going to happen I was never told that it would be an black op gone awry, the training exercise was being used as a ruse to have multiple birds flying all over the place, well the nuggets were treated favourably so I didn't have many complains. If it was a normal joint exercise then there would be no lax rules like there were now but some gruff ones like 'win in a few hours', While I was happy that the nuggets were treated to one helluva 'Exercise' at the same time I was concerned about the UH-60 downed in the mountains.

"Do we know anything how these 'hostile' came over in my grounds? Wait! Didn't we have some research people who were pretty determined to get their asses high in the mountain. Ah hell, the equipment cases were big enough were, enough to house MANPADS and small arms at-least, there were about 30 or so who went there right. I am sure I refused to give them a ride but how the hell did they get there? I want birds getting me IR of the area ASAP, halt all chopper flights over the mountains" As I blurted out what I knew and wanted to happen, Matt was suddenly shocked about my sudden rise of intelligence and even the colonel raised his brow's. After Matt recovered from a slight shock he went to get things done.

"I was told that you would be a big aid in the operations and to fully cooperate with you, I am really sorry to doubt you."

"Nah, keep all the doubts you have against me so you have no regrets of trusting me later. Lets get down to it, you have anything on you?" With a wry smile he passed a document over the table to me.

"These documents confirm your words, the research group that has went above in the mountains was found a week ago celebrating in the capital, most likely forged papers were used to duplicate identities and when they couldn't get a ride from Hierirlark, they waited until some private transporter agreed to ferry them. No one checked what was in the cases as it was a private domestic flight, probably used the excuse of 'sensitive' and 'delicate' equipment and they went on their merry way." Colonel was not very cheerful one here but he got the point over.

"I need you to check something" The colonel was not one bit faised by the request, more like he expected it

"What?"

"Get any contacts the research group made, they must be using a redeye, grail or red tassel and small firearms are anyone's guess"

"What makes you think that they would be using first generation manpads?"

"You're right, the first generation of manpads is pretty unreliable but that is in normal conditions like a temperate climate. In the mountain ranges where the temperature is too damn low, it naturally aids the primitive seekers and to add upon that is the fact that there are not many natural distraction like a hot spot anywhere in the mountains to misdirect the seekers"

"But the UH-60 does have flares on it, so the reason is pretty redundant"

"Right but at high altitudes where the air is too thin a helicopter can't do it's best to evade and even a seconds delay deploying flare will result in a shoot down as the chopper flies near to the surface from time to time." The colonel got my point after a bit of reasoning and discussion. The problem was that at this point it was all speculations, there could be freakin man portable lasers hidden in the mountains that shot the chopper down. As these crazy thoughts passed through my head the colonel spoke up.

"As we are running out of time, I have called some special forces for the next S&R mission, most likely para jumpers." Till now there was no need for heavily trained and armed forces as it was supposed to be a simple rescue op, even I didn't knew a damn thing until they went south, the beefing up of the nuggets was to buy time but then the weather is acting up. Even the colonel looked hard pressed as he mentioned the PJ's, nobody expected to things go wrong and every single damn thing did went wrong.

"Fine and if weather gets any more worse there is no way a chopper will be able to do a pick-up, and god help those still struck there."

We had not a single clue on what had happened but all we heard was a call for Aaron and the same guy rushing in and hiding in a corner.

* * *

"Y-Yo-you, did you do it?" Andrew asked a very dumb question and looked like his world was about to end. It was same for Peter as he inched closer and closer by the second, looking like a squirrel, a squirrel which had snapped and had blood shot eyes. James was also inching closer by the second and with Aaron's current state it looked like there was going to be some problems. As Peter was about to pounce on Aaron I moved in and gave a blow to his stomach, James threw a punch which I dodged by moving aside and returning one to him on his face, lastly parried a blow towards my stomach by Andrew and struck him on the side of his skull. I had knocked the three of them out by for some reason I was having a sense of deja-vu, like I had done it before or more accurate would be that it had happened before.

"Ha-ha-ha, god-damn, it happened, AGAIN!"

"What the hell! Ha-ha..., are you guys some old cartoon characters or something?"

"Edward what the hell are you? Some robot?" All I could do was scratch my head, knocking three of them was no small deal but why the hell were the devils trio laughing like crazy?

"This guy doesn't have a clue! Hell can it get more funnier?" After the devils trio calmed down a bit they explained what all had happened this morning I made a poker face to which the devils trio laughed like there was no tomorrow. After we had settled down I was feeling like a super powered hero taking three lackeys down with ease. We tried to talk with Aaron who was flaring red all over the face. After asking for a while we got an answer in a timid voice.

"Well, af-after I got the pa-package for them th-they asked me to wait a bit. Th-then..." We waited a bit but expected the answer

"They said that they would feed me themselves as a token of thanks." We deliberated on the topic, The council of devils trio and I agreed on a thing that needed to be done no matter what.

"Don't worry come with us" As Christ and Mark got under Aaron's arm I led the way, we marched a bit until we were in-front of the tent beside us and as I opened the zip, Christ and Mark brought Aaron near the opening and Rodriguez did the honour to kick Aaron in. After the job was finished I closed the zip and started heading back to our tent. It is a whole another thing if you try to flirt but a goodwill should not be ignored and when will the guy be treated like this again? I had a bit of doubt on my actions but what will be the worse thing that can happen? I simply went to sleep after closing the tent.

* * *

"How long do we have till enemy reinforcements arrive?"

"About a day, three at max"

"We need to hurry up" It was not a good idea, shooting down the black hawk but it looked like the bird had located the target and we had been searching the mountains for a long time to just lose now, though I was against bringing manpads but looks like it payed off in the end. The only draw-back was we had attracted a lot of attention but it was of no concern, we had at the most around two weeks of supplies left so it was now or never.

"How the hell have they evaded us this long? We had already scoured this area so how did they turn up here?" The grunts were pretty edgy because of the unnecessarily long time we had been here working day and night but we weren't finished yet.

"I want increased MANPADS covering the area, we want to delay the retrieval of the target by the enemy as long as possible and also a search party to check the crashed chopper, get anything useful, mainly the medic kit and a map if possible." It sounded foolish but with the increased amount of birds flying overhead I knew that they were onto us, at first I bought the story of a training exercise going on but there were just too many birds flying overhead. We were no greenhorns to be caught by IR sensors on board the birds but the countermeasures taken by us had delayed our search a lot and I would like to make up for that by personally ripping out the intestines of the bastard.

* * *

**Hello, **

**I usually don't write any foot-note as I don't feel confident enough and people are more concerned with the story (It helps a lot when reading a story when there is no break, I think it is a bit more enjoyable that way!)**

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	15. What to do

**What to do**

I slept quite peacefully and decided to take a stroll to freshen myself but for some reason when I reached the zip I had a bad feeling about it and decided o ditch the thought. After a while of waiting

"What the hell's wrong with taking a nice morning walk?"

With a simple sentence I opened the zip and felt the cold wind, cold enough to wake you whether you like it or not, after stepping outside and mindlessly walking about a fact suddenly struck me

"There is still a huge ass storm blowing here!"

I was speaking to myself so it felt like I had gone crazy, then hurried towards the back of the tent and started digging

"5, 6, 7, 8 OK that'll be all for now."

As we were or one of us was smart enough to bring and hide some supplies like ready to eat rations it was a blessing in dis... no a blessing hidden underground. The storm was blowing quite heavily but with my training and the suit, it was not much, as I got back in the tent all the residents who were peacefully sleeping when I left were fully awake and some of them had blood shot eyes, and all of them were staring at me.

"EDWARD!" All of them cried in unison and started cursing in ways untold.

"MAY THE WHOLE WORLD DAMN YOU TO HELL"

"BUT IT'S NO USEEE! HE IS THE DEVIL HIMSELF!"

"DAMNIT, THE LEADER OF GREY MEN HAS TAKEN IT TO HIMSELF TO INFLICT HARM ON THE INNOCENTS PEOPLE SLEEPING"

"ABERNATHY, TELL ME TRUTHFULLY, DO YOU HOLD A GRUDGE AGAINST US SLEEPING PEACEFULLY?"

Right in the morning I was cursed by Peter, Andrew and James. I don't know what had I done but then Christ came towards me, I was a bit scared as if even he was annoyed then what would happen to me. Christ inched closer and closer, I closed my eyes and raised my arms, waiting for the first strike to land but all that happened was my arms felt a bit lighter. I waited a bit more and my arm felt even lighter, When I opened my eye's all the people who were staring at me were very energetically preparing to have their ready to eat ration. What was the use of standing like an idiot now? I took one and tossed the remaining box aside and started taking stuff apart. It was vegetable lasagna with salsa mix, boy was it good and the lemon drink finished the meal with 5 star rating, After we had finished our meals we started a serious talk, for a while we had not exercised properly and felt lethargic, all of us agreed on the fact and we were off. Over the mountains, through the caves, we did push ups and sit ups, well our tent was never out of our sight so it was a bit exaggeration and in the storm we couldn't properly do all our work out but nevertheless we still had done quite a bit. After we got back in our tent we were hungry again and after seeing the two boxes in a corner of the tent we had a competition in which I and Christ didn't participate for our obvious reasons. As we both cracked a stupid grin looking at the fight for the two boxes, suddenly Christ blurted out a question.

"By the way where is Aaron?" Yes Aaron was missing but the guy is like that, if you don't focus on him he will be gone with the wind. Well he could have gone to...

"Hey wait didn't we drop him in the tent next to ours?" Our puny brains started to process data as fast as they could and the conclusion was that we were responsible for the disappearance of the big guy. As all the mess was happening suddenly our radio's came to life.

"T...s is com..and... exer... is off"

"I repea... the ex... ci... is of..."

"Pl... gath... stu... an...ep ...em back."

"W... de...ar... as so... s the w... the... lears"

As it was not clear enough to fully understand, Rodriguez was laying flat on the ground, waving his legs in the air and listening to the radio and spoke

"The exercise is called off, pack up and report to the canteen, dust-off is as soon as the weather clears."

It was enough to send us in a panic but all we had to do was roll up our sleeping bag's or not, Christ and I had to get back behind the tent and dig up all the stuff. After we collected all the materials and brought them in the tent

"Looks like someone was prepared to invade another country after all!" After the remark by James I wanted to scream 'It was Aaron!' but then Christ spoke in our defence

"Had we not, you guys would had to go back to supplies depot to get the rations." Take that! It was nothing much but we were still missing one member

"Hey where's Aaron?" Andrew was inquisitive about Aaron but telling him that he might be in the girls tent will most likely raise trouble. So we packed up, Rodriguez and I went to talk with the girls, we were smart enough to call from outside. As we got the consent to enter we could not control our laughter, Aaron was sleeping like a baby in a corner of the tent.

"Hope our 'little' brother didn't trouble you ladies!" Rodriguez was trying to act cool but the reply blew his mind, the girls looking more exited than flustered replied

"He is sooo cute!"

"Yes send Aaron to us any-time!"

"Yes, yes he was acting so timid and shy!"

"But he cried a bit so I think we teased him too much!"

"Please apologize on our behalf to him"

It looked like Aaron had a one helluva night and we didn't delay any further in carrying him back, more like we dragged him as he was a bit heavy. 'Was it a really good idea to throw him with the girls'? I think not as you could see tears in his eye's. As we brought him back we saw the most unreal sight in-front of us, two boxes were being shared among the five remaining people despite the fact that there were more boxes/ration present there! After Aaron got up, he made quite a ruckus when he did

"WH-WHY DID YOU?" He was sobbing as he complained, maybe the girls really teased him too much but we calmed him down by offering him the remaining spaghetti, got to take note that offering food to Aaron helped calming him down. We then packed out stuff and the tent, no one looked happy but we still had to go back. After the storm calmed down a bit we returned to the base camp, at least to what remained of it as most of the tents were taken down. All the faces looked gloomy but what could we do? As we assembled in the canteen there were no fare-well speeches or anything, everyone was too sad for anything. All we could do was wait until the helicopter came to pick us up.

"OK see ya later!" Soon the choppers were being loaded with the reluctant nuggets and instructors, shipping them back and the green squad girls were the first to go. It wasn't like we were going to never meet again but then we might not get to enjoy ourselves like we had in the past few days.

"Hey Aaron aren't you looking a bit, bigger than before?" After James mention it was really the truth, Aaron did look a bigger than before but before we could talk about it a person in flight suit came towards us and asked.

"Are you guys Fordyce, Rodriguez and Silva?" We were a bit surprised at the question but the three instructors gave a simple nod, the person didn't say anything about us so we were a bit worried.

"These nuggets are coming with us!" With a simple remark Rodriguez looked a bit more reliable than ever. It wasn't like we were little babies who would...

"NO! You don't under..." We were scared with the sudden shout, were we that bad looking that the person didn't wanted us on his chopper or did we smelled? Before anything else Mark interrupted in middle of the sentence and spoke in a serious voice

"Its 'You' who doesn't understand, if these nuggets are left alone, especially with girls, only god knows what will happen! so they need to be under 24/7 supervision by us." I really wanted to take my survival knife and stab him in the back, what are we? Sexual predators? It was fine as it cracked a smile in the face of the serious crew man but could we really let Mark get away with it, I don't think so!

"And these three here are certified 'same sex interest' people, only the devil knows how in the name of blazing flame's of hell we passed our nights!"

"Yes, We even made sure that our sleeping bags were sealed tight otherwise who knows what may have happened?"

There were some big strike at Andrew and Peter's head but before it could evolve in a bigger scuffle we were told to follow the guy. There was a CH-47 with it's blade spinning on standby waiting for us. As we were awed by the special treatment, we happily rushed in. We thought there would be enough space in there but there were still some crates and boxes present there so it was a let down but we still got enough leg space to laze around. After we were set the chopper increased its thrust and we had dust-off and it felt a thousand times better than jumping from a Hercules, having the time to enjoy the view.

* * *

It wasn't a good day for me, sitting in a chopper flying high in the mountains. We were on a recovery mission, it was common for PJ's like us to get them but this one was special. We had a black op going on, most of the grunts think that it is an honor to get em but not me, you get to work your ass off with no credit and a lot of danger but still we were the only one who the command saw 'free' and 'close' enough to respond. I almost had my leave for my son's birthday until a call came and everything went down the drain. We were told that it would be a 'drop-in and dust- off' but my guts told me something else and the fact that there was already a black hawk down didn't help much.

"Hey Rich, you think we're up against some terrorist?"

"Leo you scared?"

"Hell no, been married for what, 5-6 years and 'now' I start getting goose bumps from terror? I don't fear nothing man!"

"Oh really? How 'bout I tell this to Martha?"

"Dude not cool!"

We were 6 men going in there, Leo and Rich were nicknames but calling them Richard and Leonard was a think of the past. They sure were happy here but same couldn't be said for the others the rest of the team that was with us, we had three new boys here but I don't think I would like to socialize with them, not my thing really.

"Hey what your name fool?" Rich was quite energetic here, after he got the word 'Black' in his head, he was jumping around like crazy. Despite his good sounding name he was a damn crack pot and one of the best DM I ever met, he could easily give the best of snipers run for their money while stabbing the enemy right in the throat.

"Jeff"

"Ray"

"Jay"

Simple replies, looks like they would be easy to work with. Most of my team was busy down in Lesath and I just came back from there. After the Diego Caspar's plan struck the bottom of the ocean the country did fine for a while but then drug dealers, warlords and smugglers started popping out like weed in your garden, pesky and refusing to leave. I was told to take a break after 3 tours, go back and spend some time with family and now this happens.

"Yo boss, look like we got three fools with us on our ride!"

"Shut it, we gonna be on LZ soon"

"Sure thing boss, hey Jay..."

Right now we were going on channel 1 and the pilot were on channel 2. I decided to talk about the pilots for any updates

"...You sure?"

"Yeah got confirmation, lost another bird"

"Dammit, that's the second bird now, what are we doing here?"

"Our job, lets drop our boys and get em back real fast. Weather has been a real bitch here and I don't want to walk back."

"Same here, anyway what was the bird doing here? I though we were the only-ones doing an op here!"

"Was getting some instructors to reinforce, don't know the whole thing"

"Damn, was a beacon..."

"Nope, I sure as hell would like to check on the crash site but we are pulling this one real close and I don't think we can afford any more onboard."

"Hate to admit it but yes, with the boys back and the three down, I will be god-damned that we make a proper dust-off if we stop the blades."

"We might have injured too and the shit wagon continues to march south."

It was more than enough right now , I didn't even speak, we had hostile elements in the area. Probably 15, 20 but if the op went smooth we would never get to face them and I knew what that meant. The op never goes 'smooth' and we were gonna meet each and every one of these bastards, face to face. We were closing in on the target, the beacon broadcasted once in a while randomly from different location so we knew where to look but it was going to be a true pain in the ass 'looking' for the target. As I was deep in my thought suddenly alarm screamed in the whole craft.

"HOLD ON TIGHT!"

This time the pilot screamed at the top of his lung and with a lurch the chopper started descending, nose first. It felt like a roller-coaster ride, with just a fact that your life was in hands of some useless grunts who only knew how to move a stick and right now that was all that mattered.

"FLARES!"

With the scream I saw some bright light from the window's. It was BOHICA as the chopper inched closer and closer to the ground. I instinctively ducked, bracing for an impact that never came. The damn chair force dudes pulled up at the last possible moment as I heard two explosions, the chopper turned around and I was able to see two craters in the snow. As the pilots quoted before 'The shit wagon continues to march south' but we lived to see another day or so I thought. As soon as we thought were clear the bird started screaming again and this time we were in deep shit, we were close to the ground so we couldn't pull the dive manoeuvre again and I was no pilot. The Pilots danced on the sticks, and we were flying backwards, as the chopper slowly started turning clockwise the pilots made it roll right. If this was done on a normal bright and sunny day, I would have strangled the pilots there and then but as I saw two blazing streaks pass the chopper right in-front of me all I could do was hold on. My stomach was in a mess and my brain was in chaos from all the stunts, no wonder I never became a pilot. After a pause we had stabilized but the alarms went off again and the pilots screamed

"NO FUCKING WAY WE ARE GOING DOWN BY THAT!"

The sticks were moved again and the downhill run the chopper was in was turned to a climb and a left turn. I was surprised as the pilot on the right drew his side arm and started shooting out the chopper, at first I thought it was done due to desperation but then there was an explosion just five feet away from the bird.

"WHO THE FUCK NEEDS FLARE, WE GONNA SHOOT DOWN THE DAMN DUMB FUCK SEEKERS OURSELVES!"

I don't know was it pure luck or some plain luck but it was luck, I just ain't ready yet to admit these pilots are badass. After this stunt my men who were scared had their morale restored and we had screaming and cheering that made the alarm ashamed but we were still in deep trouble.

"HELL YEAH"

"YOU TWO ARE FREAKING FUCK AWESOME"

"WHAT THE HELL DOES THE AIR FORCE TRAIN THEIR PILOTS FOR?"

After that I knew our luck was running out, we were high in the air, sitting ducks. We needed to land but with the conditions I knew it was impossible. I carried an M-16 A6, an updated version of the an old trusted rifle, The new 'modular' guns never appeased me, had every thing yet nothing, by the time you 'changed' your 'module' the enemy would be pissing on your cold dead corpse. The alarms were down for a minute until they started screaming again, the chopper went in a dive and this one was almost vertical. I have heard that veteran Black Hawk pilots are able to avoid a single salvo of manpads but our pilots had evaded one and literally 'shot down' the second and were in the process of evading the third. After pulling the same manoeuvre we were safe but then the alarms started again and this time we weren't so lucky, the pilots did evade but only one missile, the second was launched after a pause so the seeker kept up with the chopper and the whole hull shook violently.

"WE LOST OUR TAIL, HANG ON THIS IS GOING TO BE A DAMN HARD CRASH LANDING."

"LOOSING HYDRAULIC PRESSURE! WE HAVE 2 MINUTE OF CONTROL!"

"FUCK IT, I'M GONNA LAND THIS GIRL ONE WAY OR ANOTHER"

The pilots sounded very determined but then the whole chopper shook another time and we were tumbling down, if this wasn't enough we had another hit and crashed, my vision went black.

"HEY WAKE UP DAMMIT, THESE BASTARDS ARE ALL AROUND US!"

My vision was still a bit hazy but I saw the pilot who pulled me out of the chopper grab my gun and empty a whole clip in a guy. Out of 30 rounds fired about 8 struck but were enough to down the guy, after a quick look I saw about 5 people, counting the one killed. We had the numerical advantage but they were on high ground and had a bit of cover, I took my gun from the pilot, ejected the spent magazine and slapped in a new one.

"1, NINE O CLOCK"

I was called and with a fast left turn shot the guy who popped out, a head-shot. Rich shot another and we had the tangos on the rope, I wanted to capture the remaining person and get some details but it was too much of a risk. Ray shot the last guy and it was over, we waited a bit before moving out. Dragging the bodies was hard work and no one like to see dead people, especially the ones they just killed but you just get used to it.

"What you think 4, where the hell does this guy belong from?" It was Leo asking Jeff for any clue.

"If you don't count the hole in his head he looks like a Belkan to me."

"Damn, this one looks like a Lesath!"

"This one is Osean"

"Belkan"

"Ustian"

"Looks like we have an international party here!"

The boys weren't wrong, it looked like almost a whole damn continent was here, I was a bit relieved that we had won the fight but we still needed to finish a job, which looked even more deep shit than before.

"Damn, I never thought they would shoot down a pave hawk."

"But they did, shot too many damn seekers"

"It reminded me of our flight training"

"When we flew over the girls side?"

"Yeah! But too bad we were shot down too soon"

"Yes, who would have thought they would target us with the base defense"

"That's a think of the past now, Next time I'll get a heavy machine gun as a side arm, the hand-gun ran out of ammo a bit too soon otherwise I would've had shot the last salvo down too!"

"And I'll have a howitzer as a side arm, pound em while were at it right!"

"Let's replace the cup holder's to make space for SMAW II!? Blast the bastards to gibbets."

"Nah, I can't take my burger without shake and..."

Pilots were completely in their world as we checked the bodies, there were AK-47 with 2-3 clips on everyone, 2 grenades, radio and some climbing equipment. Their shooting was not as good as ours but it was still good and that made me worry about their origin, I got the pilots carrying an AK and 4 clips, we needed all the fire-power we could muster, the pilots had MP5 with them but having a rifle increases their effective combat range. Jay and Leo carried the remaining clips and an AK each. After we were set we checked the chopper, it was totaled but the radio survived. We contacted the command and told that we were going to search for the target, we had our complains and curses to pass but the weather was acting up and the words got cut up. We decided that after we find the target we would call for dust-off, nobody liked it especially after the fire-fight with the 5 grunts, We set some charges to make sure the equipment could not be salvaged, It broke the pilots heart to destroy their ride even further into a FUBAR but they knew the protocols and decided to do the honors. Coming back to the main concern here the grunts were equipped with the bare minimum so they either were retarded or had a small base of operation set up in the mountain, I think I will go with the latter and we started our march. We were running out of time as with the men not responding to the radio will work a while but then a hunt will start and we will be the one hunted.

"2, what are you doing?"

"Wait boss I got an idea!"

"Hello" Speaking in the radio we got from the grunts, all I could do was face palm but Richard had a plan if he was doing something.

"This is... we... lled...em."

"Fine, you are not clear but we get it, nice job killing them, return to base"

I had my mouth gaping so wide that you could park a damn car in it, can't believe that worked but it was feasible, we ourselves had problem contacting command but I was not going to take this as a reprieve or anything, the enemy had seen through the facade. I'll always take the most fucked up scenario as the norm so that when we hit the shit, we don't have any complain about it. Personally I wanted to kill Rich but we were all veterans here and the pilots were the least bit shaken by the events so the situation favored us for now. We knew what our objective was but I had a doubt about how the hell are we gonna get back, our package was stuck here for about 3 days and as the intel is never right, we had our package struck here for a month. The rescue chopper sent before us was shot down so we had about three people struck here fighting off big foot and the damned continental terrorist party. Right now all I could think up of was to meet up with the instructors sent here, if they weren't dead already. Guessing from the amount of fire-power was used against the chopper we were up against heavily armed to the teeth combatants, I came here for a rescue mission and not to play around with terrorist.

"Hey you know we have the Hierirlark air force base here!"

"Dumb ass Rich, we came from there!"

We were in good spirits and I didn't want to be a sour sight but we were too optimistic here but I was good with anything if it could keep us going in this climate. Only problem was ration's, we got the basic but if we were going to do some serious work we needed some heavy chow. The survival kit has 3 boxes of ration that are supposed to keep a soldier fighting for three days but I can say we were going to run short on them after meeting up with the package.

"Ray, how long will it take us to reach our target?"

"A day and add another for search, we have pointed out a cave from the geological scans that is the most potential place to hide and if we hurry up we can finish our job in 2 and a half day."

"No need to hurry, we need to do this right. I would rather go back starving than with an another hole in my ass."

"Right boss!"

I really meant what I said, a human can starve for a week or two and we had enough water with us to pull that stunt but personally I would also like to hurry. Only if I could nail all the yeti's roaming around with guns in these mountains, sigh.


	16. Mission I don't care it's too damn cold

**Mission: I don't care it's too damn cold here!**

"Yo Cornelius, your ass frozen off or still alive?"

First thing in the morning was Rich calling me out, though he doesn't call me name until he really wants my attention but it was doubled as a wake up call right now. First thing after waking up was seeing his too cheerful and idiotic face, It was getting on my nerves. I felt like a fool yesterday night as the only one 'worrying' too much, we were 6 PJ and if you count the pilots, which I did, we were 8 people on a rescue mission. The only problem was our 'rescue' wagon was shot down and we had to trek in these cold mountain of hierirlark and it didn't end there. It wasn't that some 'snow men' that threw 'snow balls' at our ride, it was 'freakin terrorist', to be more precise it were some mercenaries and they threw a fuck ton of missile at us, I stopped my count after the 6th. I was overheating my brain thinking of the scenario we will face but the whole damn crew was busy chatting like they were mountain monkey's. After I took a slight break from my world the idiot was still smiling in my face and I remedied that with a nice powerful punch which connected and gave a nice feedback, Rich staggered a bit while holding his cheek with one hand and pointing at me with the other, whined

"Dammit, married men are not supposed to be violent! Aren't you afraid I might tell wife!?"

"If you forgot my wife is a colonel and an 'S-p-a-r-t-a-n', if she saw this weak ass punch I would be in for an 8 hour lecture on all the faults which I may or may not have from Mrs Atkinson"

There was nothing more to say as Rich nodded his head with mine and Leo's, last time when Rich messed around my wife, she planted him waist deep in the wall of our house with a solid punch to his face. It took me about 2 hour to get him out, with this there is nothing more to say about Mrs Atkinson. She is the king and the queen of the house and her word is final and to top it off her pay is better than the three of us combined, not that I have a problem with my job and salary. There is a ton of things that were going in my mind about my wife, it proved just how good of a husband I was even if what I recalled was how many times I have argued with her and lost, that will be ever single time because if I am about to win an argument it turns in a fist fight with me knocked out. After I finished my talks with Rich we got up we looked around to see if we had some company, I was expecting none with the last nights storm. Today was cloudy but the conditions were good enough for us, we started our march again. The pilots sure were talkative or should I say Rich didn't had the word 'Shut-up' in his dictionary.

"Hey, doesn't it suck to be shot down?" Right now Rich was just rubbing salt on the wounded pride of the pilots and the Pilots sure looked very pissed at him

"Don't you feel ashamed? I..."

You could clearly see the evil smile on this guys face, sure we had something called 'inter-service rivalry' and passed some smart-ass words at each other but PJ's usually didn't take part in it. Our motto was 'That Other's May Live' and I was damn proud of it, didn't be at the top of the class just to be a grunt with no brain or heart. The pilot's patience had reached its end and they replied in a very cold and very sarcastic tone.

"What we did was equivalent to you grunts evading a barrage of fuck ton of some 'Ass-hole seeker' missile's, while you had 6 overweight corpses on your back and had very little air to breath, can you do it? Oh! and I even shot two seekers down which meant spitting on two 'Ass-hole seekers' to shoot them down! Tell me can you do it?"

"All this was done in a blinding storm that reduced visibility and only thing to warn you was you get the direction from where the missile is coming, IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKETY THOUSANDS OF FEET IN THE AIR! AND YOUR BODY RESPONDS LIKE YOU ARE DRUNK AS A BUM!"

Yep, they were pissed. We Para-Jumpers were the ones who came to the scene when all hell had already broken loose and the guys on our side were in deep shit. Deep infiltration in enemy territory to rescue downed pilots, check. Marching right in to the area secured by enemy to reinforce and get out our people who were not so lucky, check. Performing HALO jumps right on top of AA machine-guns and killing the bastards manning the guns, then hijacking the very gun and slaughtering many more, marching and killing whoever the hell is in our way, running out of ammo only to rip the tangos apart with our bare hands and prying their weapons from their cold dead hands, getting a distress call telling about the critical situation of the special forces struck in deep shit, running all the way to the objective while under heavy indirect fire and assaulting the enemy stronghold, fighting armoured vehicles like technical, IFV, tanks and whatever was in the way, killing everyone present in a 10 click radius and carrying the special forces on our back's to safety, double check ant that's also how I met a certain Spartan and got married to her. So in our line of work we had a lot of 'jumping' from 'anything that flies' and therefore we were at good terms with the people in air-force, we knew these guys were responsible for hauling our ass in and out of trouble and respected them for having the balls to support us by jumping with us right in the shit. Of course we PJ's spent more time in the shit than them but there is no gain is uselessly pissing off someone who would be giving cover and over watch to you and your squad.

"You calling me an 'ass hole'?"

"Aren't you?"

"You're damn 'right' on the bulls eye! By the way can you get me some of those 'ass-hole seekers'? You see I have a commander and he kinda fits perfectly in the criteria"

"Ha-ha-ha..."

The only reason people tolerate Rich was he made things better faster than he made things worse, both with his mouth and gun. It took half a day of search and walking 'apparently no-where' but we got close to the target and it was not looking good. There were about 2 people who were in a fire-fight with 16 out numbered and out gunned, there was a cave nearby and with a closer look with binoculars we had a trail of blood leading into it. There was nothing more to see or think, Rich and Leo pulled out their DM rifle and went prone. I took Ray, Jay and Jeff with me while telling the pilots to stay put, the reply was my collar was taken a hold of and I was stared right in the eye

"They are our guys and we ain't gonna sit here with thumbs up our asses doing nothing."

I knew a few pilots who had balls and they were one of them. At this point there was no time to waste and I got the word from our DM's that they were ready to rain death on our enemies.

"Fine but don't drag us down"

"You won't regret it"

Then the assault team moved as fast as it could, the camouflage was working because we were far enough but as the distance between us and the tangos got shorter we were going to be very noticeable. I am 35 and usually father's my age can't run as fast as I do and they don't come under a hail of bullets as I had, it is also a fact that those father's aren't as crazy as I am and neither of them are PJ's. This useless thought passed my head because I was struck by some bullets right in my chest, right now if it weren't for my vest I would be dead. It is a funny fact that there is a race in the world between stuff 'That kill' and stuff 'That protect' and right now the stuff 'I' had 'That protects' was effective enough to save my ass. I suddenly noticed that there were 4 guys just standing there in the back doing nothing while the rest were fighting like crazy. Not interested in conserving ammo the enemy fired like there was no tomorrow and they aimed everywhere, It was foolish and so dumb that I wished to take my gun and shove its barrel up their ass-hole's.

"Targeting the duck's standing like dumb in the back!"

It was the reliable voice of Leo over the comm. The men standing at the back were too strange, we had reinforced the pilots making a stand and yet they didn't make a single move. The reason could be that they were confident in the lackeys who were fighting us but after bullets being fired straight in the sky for no apparent reason, it looked less convincing. The other possibility is they are hiding something up their sleeves and it gave a very cold chill run down my spine.

"Boss, you all-right?"

"Yeah, vest stopped em"

I felt glad that Ray was concerned about me but we didn't have time to talk. We hurried towards the cover as Jeff and Jay gave some cover fire, we were professionals and as long as the bullets were real we were gonna act like we were on the edge. We checked the pilots condition and they were in deep trouble, one of them was shot three times in the chest while the others left hand was shot. The vitals weren't hit but the problem was that they were bleeding too much. The wounds were fresh so we could patch them up but as of right now there were some morons firing everywhere. There were two shots fired from the DM's location, looks like two less grunts to deal with

"HOLY SHIT!" I hated when people screamed over the comm and especially when the people concerned was Rich.

"Rich, I swear to god I'll rip..."

"No boss, there is something totally wrong here!"

"What is it?"

"The guys in the back! You see I lined up the shot with Leo and it was right on the mark I swear but the tangos didn't go down!"

What was that? Even through both Rich and Leo were considerably younger than me their skill were top notch and they were professionals that wouldn't make a useless fuss over a miss. I switched with Jeff and made a three round burst, the guy ducked almost as soon as I shot but I got his shoulder, there was visible 'pink mist' in the air to confirm it. Before I ducked back into cover I saw a bullet impact one person standing in the back right in the throat, a person is definitely dead if hit there but the guy stood there unflinching. It made a cold sweat pass down from my head, what the hell was going on? I literally saw a guy take a bullet in his throat! I had personally shot people like that and none of them lived to tell the tale it should have been an instant kill. As I was shocked crouching on my knees Ray spoke up

"What happened?"

"The bastards standing in the back have some kind of whole body armor on them, took one to the throat and didn't even flinch."

There is a misconception that soldiers always aim for the head, we are told and trained to aim for the heart so even if we miss we will reduce the persons fighting ability unless he was properly equipped. The problem with aiming for the head is that the target is too small and moves too much. If we compare the head to the throat the difference is that even a 'soft' impact on throat can be lethal as there is only a spinal cord passing in the back as a strong support while the head is protected by bones. The situation had taken a turn 180 degree turn, the DM rifle were the best penetrator we had and if it didn't work on an area which was usually unprotected I don't think our rifle would do any better. Right now our kill count was around 3 tangos, the only thing left to try was our grenade launcher attachment.

"_Genug, wir kümmern uns um sie jetzt zu nehmen_."

What the hell was that? One guy in the back shouted and everyone stopped firing, the 4 people took steps forward and the one that had just spoken started speaking again, the voice was a bit strange but it came out of the mask so it must be from a speaker

"_Wir haben zu viel Zeit hier verschwendet wird, gehen und kümmern sich um die Scharfschützen._"

"Dammit, Leonard and Richard watch out, the grunts are coming towards you!"

"Jay you know..."

"No time to talk boss, the 4 monsters are coming for us we better fall back."

As we were talking suddenly the small rock we were taking cover behind was being ripped to shreds, right now my brain had stopped functioning. Full body armour which stopped DM rifle even in one of the most fragile spot!? Gun that ripped a rock to shred like an industrial crusher!? Things weren't looking good, I gave the order to move back in the cave and emptied the remaining 28 rounds in the group running towards the DM. We were in real trouble as we slowly retreated back into the cave, I took a peek behind and saw the 4 monsters pick up rifle's from the fallen lackey's. I got a glimpse of the gun they were holding and it wasn't anything I had ever seen before, was very bulky and big while the barrel hole looked too small in comparison. After we got in the cave we saw our package for the first time, it was a young guy and he looked like a belkan. He was also in a not so good condition as he looked exhausted and starved, I took two pilots and we emptied a whole clip from our guns, of course not in the guy but towards the 4 monsters. After seeing the result if felt like I was seeing a film, the bullets ricocheted after hitting the bodies with some spark, a guy had raised his hand while the rest proceeded forward without flinching. I deployed my grenade launcher and tilted the gun, there is usually an extra sight attachment for long range lobs but for a vet like me it wasn't a problem. I aimed for the foremost person and let the little boy loose, the grenade drew an arc in the sky as it inched closer and closer and I had a smile of triumph on my face, no matter how strong an armour is it had to be kept light enough to allow the infantry to move. There were the next gen vest but it was under R&D plus no vest was designed to withstand the full impact of a grenade launcher. It is not like that when a grenade lands everyone turns to gibbets, the full name is 'Fragmentation Grenade' and what it did was 'sent a lot of its fragment' and the direction it sends its 'fragment' was 'everywhere'. It was like a small throw-able shotgun that killed people with small fragments, there is one more factors that contribute to a grenade's lethality and that is the explosion, if you are close enough to a grenade then you will be filled with tiny bits of metal along with being burned but it is not the fire that kills you if you survive the fragmentation. It is the shock-wave, it is not very big but in a close room it's power amplifies exponentially and the same can be said for direct impact as the close range proximity transfers the most of the energy into the target. In a film the hot-shot would have made a turn to where his back was and put on a pair of sun glasses but in reality I needed to confirm the kill and there were three others to deal with. I waited for the smoke to clear but then the wind blew and did the job faster, the person I shot had halted but was still on his feet.

"_Sind Sie in Ordnung_?"

"_Да! Граната ударила прямо, а броня спасти меня. Я думаю, что они не имеют ничего сильнее в своем арсенале._"

"_Gut, aber wir spät dran sind, lässt es zu beenden und mit dem Wetter als Abdeckung zum Rückzug._"

"_отлично"_

"WILL YOU FUCKIN SPEAK ENGLISH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!? CUZ I AIN'T GETTIN A SINGLE SHIT YOU ARE SAYING!"

Now there was a very funny and awkward silence here, was followed by a reply from the mercs

"_НЕТ!"_

"Fine then! _VOUS SUCEZ MERDE!_"

"_然后，你他妈的一只鸭子_"

"_O Pedicabo ego a anatis? Confutuere et irrumabo, a capra, Etenim habeo Donec ipsum._"

"_देखो दोस्तों__, __यह आदमी हमारे भाग्य का मजाक उड़ा रही है__. __कमीने को संभालो या मैं उसे मार देंगे__._"

"_なぜ？なぜ？それを言って、それがあまりにも必要だった！あなたは私たちの心に何が起こるのかを知っていますか__?_"

"Pojďme se zastavit..."

To clarify this was a conversation in I don't know how many languages and it was so irritating that I really wished to god that he kill's all of them with anything or send my wife here. This went on for about an half an hour before the other side lost, I could say this because they started shooting at the pilot's who were smiling like a kid who had won an argument with another. I should make a memo or write it somewhere that if we survive this I am literally going to bury them alive after kicking their asses. The fun time was over and we were getting serious, as the mercs inched closer and closer we were looking like we were in trouble. Leo and Rich had already fallen back in the cave unnoticed while the pilot's and the mercs were bickering among themselves. I tried not to panic and do something, shoot at the joints, didn't work, shoot at the balls, didn't work. The last one was stupid but after a few minutes of fire from our side suddenly I heard the pilot's MP5 clicking with the most dreadful sound, the sound of an empty chamber.

"GET BACK YOU IDIOTS!"

I knew it was a cold and hard fact that a person cannot carry infinite ammo but as I looked towards the ground I saw a lot of shells and empty clips. It could only mean one thing, we were getting low on ammo, I checked my tac pouch for remaining clips but there were none. I had slapped the last clip into the rifle, I knew what was going on and what was going to happen, if we continued any longer we were going to be filled full of holes with the AK's or worse we were going to be ripped to shreds by the monstrous gun... Wait that's it! I gave the signal to Jay and he lunged towards a merc and I made a run to grab his gun, It was completely suicidal with all the fire my team was throwing and maybe Jay might failed to get my signal but it worked in the end. The big gun was on a strong sling but I didn't bother pulling it away, I just followed my instincts and pulled the trigger. Thankfully the merc was overconfident enough to not switch the gun to safety and I filled him full of holes while he was busy dealing with Jay. The gun made a sound like it was charging up but then it instantly let loose, the impenetrable armour was ripped to shred and you could see the insides of the guy, right then the most shocking fact struck me. Despite the guns size and power there was literally no recoil, I had heard that the R&D was started but it wasn't possible. What I had just used was no ordinary gun, it was a rail gun and that was too high tech to just hunt one man, just what was our package worth? I really wanted to keep the gun but it was pulled apart from my hand and I was thrown back like a rag-doll and soon Jay followed. Another thing that struck me was they mercs themselves and especially their armour, when I shot the merc he was almost on me and the feeling was strange. They average height for these mercs was around 6 feet but the problem was their look, they looked too bulky. The guy felt like he was around 78 or 80 kg, the thing is I am 80 kg and with my kit the weight goes around 105-120 kg and when the armour ripped off it looked like it was a very small layer. The blankets at boot camp which are barely a centimeter thick looked thicker than the armour. The other part that looked strange was the back, I thought it was a bag-pack but from it oozed a strange liquid, colourless but a bit viscous. The mercs stared at their dead comrade and then towards me, I suddenly realized what had I done. I had no problem killing someone but the problem was I had lost the status quo, I had lost the rail gun and there was nothing more to say. I gulped as I say one of the merc carry the dead person outside and throw him aside, There was nothing more I could do as the very rail gun I had just fired, ones similar to that were pointing at us. I could honestly say I was scared after seeing the devastating fire-power of such a small platform. I suddenly remembered a prototype weapon that was showed to us by a power point commando, it was about next generation of weapons. The next generation of AT weapon, a high explosive filled metal slug fired from a rail gun for devastating effects on armoured vehicles and fortified structure. The only problem was that it was so big that you needed three grunts to operate it and even more to set it up, you had to reload after every shot and insert a new power cell each time, the rate of fire was around 2 shots per minute. The gun I used was too high tech like someone made a visit into the future, and the armour too. I started looking for options but there were none, there were some rock here and there in the cave but the rail gun would make a short work of them. We couldn't do a charge as we did before because last time the mercs were careless, that ain't gonna happen right now. Soon we were being closed on and time was running out, all I could do was make a wall with my men to protect the wounded and the pilots, through the pilots were fair game if you ask me but they were not front-line grunts like us. As I was about to say my final rites the mercs threw their rail guns and spoke

"Let's do it our way"

* * *

**Hello again**

**I am here to throw in some translations as you cannot copy the words and use google translate but as I am writing here I'll talk about something else too. I know most of you guys are getting a bit impatient (the guys in this category includes only me as of now) as this is an AC fan-fic and not an FPS but I did gave the 'PAVE Hawk' ride didn't I?**

**I really want to get the boys strapped in a cockpit ASAP but as you read I am trying something interesting here so forgive me for the delay but don't worry I'll try my best to hurry up.(if you didn't get what I said then wait for more chapters to come out)**

**Also one final thing, please give a review if possible (the box is below and even if you are an unregistered person here on the site you can still write a review as a guest, hell you can write ten with no problem) The reviews help me me a lot by telling me what is wrong and what can be added in the story to make it better. If you have something to say you can PM me and if you lack an account here and are too lazy (like I was in the past) but would like to say something you can use the review box as a platform to communicate (but really it is better to make an account as it will help you keep track of you favorite stories and authors, not to mention you will be able to better communicate with others through PM)**

**OK now the translations,**

** Please note that they were done as a careless experiment which turned out to be good enough to add so some of you might find em a bit disturbing but if you really want to know then read below**

* * *

**_Genug, wir kümmern uns um sie jetzt zu nehmen_.**

**(enough, we'll take care of them now.)**

**_Wir haben zu viel Zeit hier verschwendet wird, gehen und kümmern sich um die Scharfschützen._**

(**We have wasted too much time here, go and take care of the snipers.**)

**_Sind Sie in Ordnung_?**

**(Are you alright?)**

**_Да! Граната ударила прямо, а броня спасти меня. Я думаю, что они не имеют ничего сильнее в своем арсенале._**

**(Yeah! The grenade struck directly but the armour save(ed) me. I think they have nothing stronger in their arsenal.)**

**_Gut, aber wir spät dran sind, lässt es zu beenden und mit dem Wetter als Abdeckung zum Rückzug._**

**_(Good but we are running late, lets finish it and use the weather as a cover to retreat.)_**

**___отлично_**

**___(Fine)_**

**It is till here the different language was used as a meaningful conversation, the rest is as you might have picked the que me messing around with google translate but it sounded funny.**

**_НЕТ!_**

**_(NO!) _Ooh the burn**

**_VOUS SUCEZ MERDE!_**

**(YOU SUCK SHIT!) didn't use translate here as I know a bit of french.**

**_然后，你他妈的一只鸭子_**

**_(Then you fuck a duck!) you gotta agree that 'Fuck a duck' sounds funny and even funnier when said in another language._**

**___O Pedicabo ego a anatis? Confutuere et irrumabo, a capra, Etenim habeo Donec ipsum._**

**___(Oh I fuck a duck? Then you fuck a fucking goat! By the way I have a sexy girlfriend.) _this ain't the most accurate but still works.**

**_देखो दोस्तों__, __यह आदमी हमारे भाग्य का मजाक उड़ा रही है__. __कमीने को संभालो या मैं उसे मार देंगे__._**

_**(Look guys this man is making a fun of our luck, get the bastard or I'll kill him) **_**I know the translation got messed up but when I wrote in the way we talk the translation got messed up even more.**

**_なぜ？なぜ？それを言って、それがあまりにも必要だった！あなたは私たちの心に何が起こるのかを知っていますか__?_**

**(Why? Why? was it too necessary to say that! do you know what goes in our mind?)**

**_Pojďme se zastavit..._**

**_(Let's stop...)  
_**


	17. Stuck in a cave

**Stuck in a cave**

The mercs were doing something I couldn't believe, they let go of the rail guns, threw em out of the cave like they were some cheap toys. It looked like lady luck was shining on us, it only looked and the real thing was way off.

"I will tell you in a very simple way, beat us or get pass us and you live."

It was a very offending fact that we were being treated the same as the army, not that it mattered as of right now. As the mercs cracked some bones and looked like they were warming up one of them continued

"But if you fail then we'll kill you."

These guys were pushing their luck, we were 6 airborne here, one of the most ruthless people in our line of job but something felt off here, like a bad omen. One merc went to the cave entrance and stood guard while the remaining two stood where they were provoking us, we already had the numerical advantage of 2:1 which was now increased to 3:1. I might not the most chivalrous person out there so I was going to make the most of this opportunity, there was a chance that the merc on the entrance might pick up a rail gun but we would have tackled him by then. As I was smiling one merc stepped forward, it was Jay and Jeff who led the assault. Suddenly I noticed something and shouted.

"STOP!" Both the fighters looked a bit puzzled as they came back.

"Oh you noticed? You really are something"

"What going on boss?" The question was from the back and I didn't turn to answer Leo

"Their armour act as a support or exoskeleton, we can't beat em in a brawl"

The fact itself was so horrifying I didn't speak any more, and exoskeleton was literally the limit. No wonder the rail gun looked so heavy yet there was no problem using it, it was mainly due to the sling that the gun didn't felt heavy to me otherwise I could have barely held the gun upright. This was clearly defying some major amount of logic here, exoskeleton were used with limited application but this was too strange. The armour looked paper thin like it was another layer of skin yet it was strong enough to withstand a direct impact and explosion from a grenade launcher, right now there was no time to debate on the issue. We launched an all out assault on the two mercs, a tackle followed by a some pummelling. There was no use trying a knife here as the armour could clearly stop a bullet, there was a good chance that normal CQB will not be effective for the same reason. The result was a kick to my chest, a knee to Leo's stomach and a punch to Rich's face. Even though they sounded simple, the power behind them was on a whole different level, impossible to achieve by a human. If it was a normal person we would have shrugged it off but right now Rich was knocked out cold and Leo held his stomach like if he didn't it was going to fall out. I wasn't doing any better as I grasped for breath

"Too bad it ended so quickly, I thought they might have given us a real challenge."

"It ain't their fault, its just that we are too good here."

Jeff, Ray and Jay were also down on the floor, this was the first time in my life that this feeling came over me, my friends down and out of the count, someone behind us who we are supposed to protect but the enemy is god-like, this was a cold and dark feeling that crept over me, my friends were going to die, the pilots and the belkan was going to die and I was going to die. Through there was no life threatening injury on my I started to hallucinate, I saw my wife and my son, my father and mother playing with me, I was going deeper and deeper in the faint memories...

"YAAAAAAAAA..."

I heard two shouts from the pilots that flew our ride, it can be only them as the other pilots and the belkan were in no condition to fight to begin with, there were bullets being fired from their MP5, I was certain their ammo was out but maybe the other pilots still had a clip or two which they took. With the bullets ricocheting everywhere I was afraid that we might be hit but there was no use to worry right now, the pilots expended their clip and leapt towards the mercenary, though the try was good it was of no use. In an instant the merc grabbed the pilots by their necks and held them high above the ground.

"I think we agreed on a fight with no bullets"

"Cut em some slack, they are pilots after all. The only thing he boasted of was his girlfriend, I think that is the only argument he can win."

The merc finished his line and squeezed the neck's tighter, now there was no time to loose as even the pilots were putting up a fight. After I got a bit of my breath back, I grabbed my gun and took out my side-arm and started shooting at the merc's, the bullets didn't do a single thing but it got their attention, that was all I needed. With the rifle and side-arms chamber which were empty soon, I twisted my hand gun in such a way that I was holding it inverted with my pinky finger on the trigger and I grabbed the rifle by it's barrel. Now I had a big and small clobbering tool's in my hands, if I couldn't pierce the armour then blunt force would have to do. I struck the merc holding the pilots just below his wrist with my rifle, the first impact was perfect but the second one lacked power but it didn't matter as the pilots were free but knocked out. The second merc didn't wait a second as he tried to take my gun by it's grip, the rifle was my main weapon which gave me the range to fight but if the merc caught it by its grip then I would loose it for sure. I thrusted my hand gun holding hand towards the advancing arm with the gun making contact as I kicked the merc in his chest as hard as I could and it felt good to dish out some payback. The merc flew in the air and struck the cave wall, it was good but I shouldn't do it again because I barely escaped the other merc who went for my arm. I swung my rifle overhead and struck the merc right on his head, this hit could kill a man with enough force but I swung it moderately, there was no use to exhaust myself here as there was a third merc standing out there and if I was winning even by a small margin I was sure he would step in. In less than a minute the mercs I was fighting were getting good at evading but not good enough, I wielded my tools as a club but used them as a sword, with quick and precise hits I was grating on the two mercs but I knew that I would loose in the end. I just wanted to give them one hell of a time killing me off, I was an airborne and airborne die hard and these mercs were going to know it themselves. At first I had the pace of the battle with me but soon the mercs caught up and started throwing counters, they were not technology-nerds but battle hardened warriors. As I made a short swing with my rifle the merc ducked and pulled back his left hand, I instantly got the rifle in-front of me and that was a life saver. The charged uppercut came at me a bit diagonally but the rifle took most of the impact, it was too much. The shock spread through whole of my body and almost numbed my hands, to add to that I flew off the ground and landed a bit back. I was fighting a pointless battle as the taunts kept increasing, the mercs were clearly enjoying the battle and it felt like they were playing with me.

"HA-HA... DON'T STOP, WE WANT MORE!"

"YES, YOU ARE THE FIRST TO GIVE US SO MUCH JOY AFTER WE GOT THESE SUITS!"

I think I should say this, I really felt like I was in real danger if I lost here, these guys sounded homosexual to me! A lame joke but it helped me calm my nerve and focus on the battle, I was doing a fine job fighting the...

"ENOUGH! We are already late and our client is already very furious in our delay due to the slip-up in Belka, we cannot afford to mess around right now."

There was a few strong punch delivered into my stomach and chest, definitely stronger than that of the two mercs and with that I instantly fell on my knees, too strong.

"What do we do..." As I heard one of the merc I fought ask something, his sentence was cut in middle of the sentence by three shots, I was on the floor by now as I looked the belkan and the pilots who were with him get shot, thankfully the shots were not aimed and struck the chest and abdomen but with no aid those three were going to die. The shooter was the merc who suddenly came in our fight and almost knocked me out.

"But we are going to kill these grunts our way, starting with this guy." They were pointing at me.

"Fine, as long as the target dies our clients will be satisfied."

There was no more talks as one merc got me by my throat and hung me in the middle of the air, after a few seconds I was clearly being pummelled with his other hand, everything below neck and above waist was being decimated. At that time the pain from the sudden strike by the third merc hadn't subsided but the only thing that went in my mind was 'ENDURE IT NO MATTER WHAT'. We were soldiers who had killed men in the name of our country so I didn't expect anything from god, we weren't sure as hell 'innocent' but I could say that we were 'noble', with each hit I got the faces of people, civilian or military, innocent or guilty that I had saved flashed in my head. I will not lie here saying that I am ready to die, I have a bright son and a beautiful wife waiting for me but I might not make it this time. Now all I could do was hold on, I was responsible for the people around who were right now down on the ground. Most of them were young, probably didn't even cross the age of 25

"Oh man, it sure is getting boring! Hey do something about it!"

The man who was beating me heard his partner and let go of me, I was almost about to faint as I heard more gun shots, I instantly opened my eyes and saw smoke rising from a hand-gun. It were Jay and Leo who were shot

"NOOOOOOOOOOO..." I couldn't even speak a word before yet this scream came out from the deepest part of me.

"Hey it looks like he's still alive"

"First one I say"

Soon I saw the lackeys that survived assemble in-front of the cave and the third merc went to talk with em, I didn't have much time to notice as soon my left arm was stomped on and crushed instantly with the sound of bones breaking audible. I screamed at the top of my voice as the nerves in my arm and screamed louder than the rest in my body, I spat some blood out

"Looks like he ain't no superman"

The mercs misunderstood the scene. It is quite true that 'coughing' out blood is a sign of danger to life but it was my mouth which was cut, nevertheless my life was in peril with all the damage I took, I had a good amount of ribs broken and my left arm was gone.

"OK here's the deal, survive as long as you can and if you satisfy us we'll leave your friends alive!"

The deal sounded good but it wasn't really anything good, I was wrong to judge them as warriors. They were just some adrenaline junkies who wanted to hear screams and cries of agony and despair. I had never prayed to god in my life but it looked like a good time to start now. I remembered a story my grandfather used to read me every time before I went to bed, when we all are born in this world we have a guardian angel sent to us as infants by God, who guards us from all danger, the boy in the story would always face trouble, he was an orphan with no one to take care of him yet he always came out without a scratch, when he was accused of stealing money some one would pay a visit to the orphanage and return the purse which was taken by a thief. When he was abandoned, a farmer picked him up and raised him as his own son, when he got lost in a fair a kind lady came and took care of him until they found the farmer. When street dogs chased him then a single dog would scare them off and give the boy shelter for the night in his dog house. The story was like this until the boy had became a man, when he grew more trouble came at him but this time there were no miracles, there were no kind gentlemen giving him a hand or some kind ladies taking care of him, the story felt sad until my grandfather read the last part, the boy was cold and he didn't have anyone to help him, the farmer, his father had passed away and he was in a place far away from those dear to him. He slept out in the cold but in his dream he heard all the people who were kind to him say encouraging words to him, the lady at the fair, the farmer and a lot of people talked who talked to him but in the end there was a voice he didn't knew who talked to him gently. The boy panicked and woke up to find an old man lay a blanket over him, I asked my grandfather was it God who talked to him but he said that it was the old man who was talking to him but the reply was 'no, it's someone else'. I was too small then to understand what it meant and pestered my grandfather day and night to which the reply was 'you'll know when you grow up'. Right now I call out to the end of the world, if you are listening please, please save my fellow men, they have fought hard to protect the innocent and they don't deserve to die here, especially at the hands of these monsters, please save them, please send out someone to save them if you ever existed God because we need help from our _Guardian angel__'s_.

The beating went on for half an hour and all I though was the people around me despite my own life's fire about to extinguish. It felt really funny, maybe this is some kind of 'Final act of kindness' from me as I subconsciously knew I was going to die, I was getting delusional and seeing things when I felt the beating stop

"Looks like he's done."

The voice sounded disheartened but I knew what to do to remedy that, If I gave up I knew what was going to happen to my friends. I mustered last of my strength as as each and every single nerve of my nerve screamed telling my brain the my body was almost FUBAR and threw a punch with all my might, it didn't connect properly but it sent out the message.

"N...o...t,...ye...t"

I was barely able to get those words out as the monster's continued to brutally pummel me and send me to the after-life, my regret being that I could not meet my son or my wife...


	18. SOSA

**SOSA: Save Our Sorry Asses**

I was down with my back against the cave wall, my whole body screaming from the critical amount of damage it had taken. Had it been a normal person he would have been dead, I wonder what saved me? It didn't matter as I saw the corpses of the two mercs down on the floor, their exoskeleton armour literally stripped from the torso, which was the only part which I could identify. The limbs and the head were missing, like they had been ripped off by a bear or something like that and the armour had receded from the body like someone had frozen it and made it compress. Whatever the reason I was still alive but who were the saviours, despite the fact that they were brutal, I quickly ran my brain which refused to recall anything. Were it some yuktobanian special forces bears that were send to save us?... Looks like all the beating took some effect on my brain. OK focus, in the mountain's there were three Osean airforce helicopter shot down including ours. The first helicopter just had 2 pilots which were here and accounted for, the second helicopter in which we came was the same story so it only left the 3rd helo which was carrying the instructors. Impossible! It doesn't matter who they were but being an instructor takes you off the edge, away from any danger into the safe side where you have access to amenities and all. Even if they still had their fangs sharp enough and somehow got here on time how the hell did they kill the mercs? Looking at the corpses there...

"Yo Mark... this broken ass is discriminating against us!"

"What the hell? We just saved your asses man!"

I could hear sounds of people and they were pissed at me, I didn't even say anything to begin with, maybe my facial expression were too easy to guess. After looking around there were people moving here and there in a hurry, some calling out for ketamine while other called out for some bandages. It looked like my whole crew took a hit from the two junkies before any reinforcements arrived.

"James, what's the condition of the Belkan?" At this question my heart started pounding like crazy, was the Belkan still alive? There were a thousand of question I would like to ask to these guys right now but was the guy because of which it all happened still alive to answer some question, one of them being what the hell he did to have those over-tech monsters after him!

"He'll live but we need to haul him back to base and properly patch him if we need to get him on his feet Rod."

"Fine by me, how are our 'diaper' jumpers doing?" Diaper jumpers!? I never felt this humiliated in my whole life or at-least unable to retort. It was a joke so it meant that there was nothing visibly serious, the two idiots who were shot would live to see another day. Hell, I'll never let em live this one down!

"The Para's had a close call, lost a lot of blood but with some patching and volume expanders they'll be up and running, the problem is one of the pilots. The poor guy was shot near the base of his spinal cord, I ain't no certified doctor but still I say he might be struck in a wheelchair if the bullet did something as small as graze the nerve bundle."

"I don't care James, with what we were up against I say he's lucky to even breath, all of them are."

I could now Identify the two called Rod and James near me, while the person called James looked mature and serious he was younger than the one called Rod. After observing for a few moments I came to a result. The guy was too young to be an instructor

"James, you're a nugget?" The first word out of my mouth were about a very stupid question, so stupid that I wanted to slap myself. Using the term nugget got their attention or so I though but it was something else that made them rush towards me. Even speaking these few words properly made my chest scream out in pain, my lungs burning. I wanted to hold my chest and squeeze it a bit to reduce the pain but with all the wounds there it would be like setting up a chain-reaction of a lot of pain.

"Take it easy Mr Atkinson, Aaron just patched you up and he's gonna kill me if anything happened to you."

"Yes and he's going to bury our corpses with these damn weird ass mercs while he's at it!"

Aaron!? Who was he? And how the hell did they knew my name? Right now for a second I had the same face as the one the nugget James had made when his name was called out suddenly from a stranger. I made my brain run as fast as possible then I recalled a few bits, he was my wife's brother's son or something like that. I had never been a social freak and am pretty happy with just my family and friends so I had vague memory about the guy but something felt nostalgic about the name.

"There he is!"

"Yo Aaron, found something?"

The two who were with me turned towards the cave entrance and waived their hands idiotically, it was foolish to bring nuggets but it ended without any injuries to them so there were no complaints from me. It was foolish to bring some nuggets but who would have thought we would be facing some monsters. The light from outside the entrance made only the black silhouette of the guy visible, as he came in, the lights which were set up in the cave for illumination helped me take a better look. To tell you the truth it looked so ridiculous that if I was his instructor I would have made him do 500 push-ups on the spot. He had a huge AT rifle on his back with three other rifle that looked almost the same, must be the ACR-17 and it's different modules. The thing was he had 2 rail-guns on him, if I was correct this alone should make a person stagger. To add to that he had 2 portable folding rocket launcher on him, the rocket launcher was a modernized version of L.A.W. or Light Anti-Tank Weapons and there was more. A chain of AT round slung from the shoulder to the side of his hip, all sort of equipment were slung all over the body. To sum it up he looked like a super soldier, the only thing was it was the one you would find in a stupid FPS where you battled cyborgs and aliens

"Cleaned up the one's we left, were nothing much."

"Were they the same as those three?"

"Nope, just 2 regular grunts"

At first look at Aaron, you would think with his build he would have a deep and gruff voice but right now it was calm and collected despite the vocabulary used. You could say it sounded like a kid trying to act cool and this re-freshened my memories, the pain from my chest had subsided but I needed to be careful to not to get overexcited

"Hunter is that you?"

I was surprised to see 'this' little guy here, me and my wife practically raised him, as long as he was with us which was not very long. Our most found memories were messing up and then hiding from my wife for the rest of the day to avoid being sent to the afterlife, Aaron had taken a lot of blame for me and I had really enjoyed being around him. He was like an elder brother to my son Arthur, I was happy to see the guy smile and nod to my question but then suddenly his face turned a bit dark and scared as he said

"Aunt Laura is here." and without skipping a beat I replied.

"And she's going to kill me, right? Oh Fuck!."

* * *

"Dragoon Flight, this is AWACS Night Owl, we have multiple airborne contact's, unidentified bogeys moving slow and low in sector B2. Proceed to intercept, will update en-route."

"This is Dragoon 1, Rodger that Night Owl. Changing heading to sector B2, ETA 5 minutes."

It had been some time since I had some decent action, we were a 2 man flight doing BARCAP near the Belkan border. The snow covered peaks were a sight to behold as you passed over them. The isolated area devoid of any major human settlement, I liked it the way it was serene and tranquil. We were flying in top of the line air superiority fighter, the F-22's so I was confident enough that we could take on any bird in the sky as long as it was not a super weapon!

"Dragoon 2, feeling up for some action?"

"Yeah boss, can't wait to let loose some 'Foxes'!"

"Hold your horses 2, we might be chasing out some idiots with faulty equipments."

"But it never hurts to bare your fangs, especially at someone in your own block."

"Yes yes, fine you won 2, you might go ahead and annihilate every sentient life present here on this planet..."

"You kill-joy of a leader, Dragoon 2 out."

I hate to admit it but it was true, right now we had peace all over the world, the last major conflict being the one between Lesath and Aurelia. For pilots like us it meant the high brass was going to be engrossed in making our life as miserable as possible, right now despite flying Raptors we were equipped with AIM-9L's or Lima sidewinders on the grounds that 'The pilot's and the machine will compensate for the inferior armament'. Compensate my ass when I die cuz the enemy had better stuff, I can boast that I am a fine pilot who is going to die because of penny pinching high brass who were getting better at it as every day went by. The military brats and anyone like them always get their hand's on AIM-9M and fire em' on drones for 'training' while those who really need em use old stuff. It's not that the Lima's are old and useless but if there was something better available I sure would like to use em. What was the use of flying 5th generation stealth fighters if we were not arming them to the teeth!? As a stealth fighter pilot my only regret is that there aren't enough missile on my ride to shoot down each and every sucker I get a lock on. Dragoon flight's raptor's were updated and could be armed with AIM-9X, I am being modest just asking for Mike sidewinders

"Hey yo boss, stop cursing the higher-ups for armament and focus on mission."

"Oh! Now you feel very talkative and psy-kicky eh?"

"Yep, despite being a professional in the business of flying I know you will eat out anyone if they unnecessarily and on purpose mess with your ride. Sometimes I question how the hell do you manage not to rip apart the ground crew and mechanics."

"That's because I know who is really responsible for the messing up and those guys on the ground are the ones really reliable and dependable when you are in deep shit."

"Yep, mind saying your quote again?"

"Why not!?" After taking a few seconds I quoted myself

"The gay boys look at the waters and prays to the god of sea's for a safe ride and good weather, the damn puny ants on ground look to the sky and pray to god for good weather and flat surface to walk on... While the pilots look aside and say to god 'I hope that those damn grease monkeys haven't fucked up our ride'."

"Now that's more like you, lame and useless."

"And its more like you, good for nothing and full of complains."

"You freakin flying-ass"

"Oh really!? I wonder who was going to pay for the drinks today because he was feeling to treat his wingman once in a while."

"I'm sorry! Please forgive me and please treat me to a drink."

"Will a scotch do?"

"Hell boss I'm happy even if you buy me a bottle of beer!"

"Nah man, I want to have scotch once in a while"

"As long as you pay"

"OK you two NOW SHUT IT, MORE UNINVITED GUEST'S ARE IN OSEAN AIRSPACE AND YOU NEED TO GET EM OUT, AM I CLEAR ENOUGH?"

"Yes you are too damn loud actually and pretty clear enough Night Owl, Dragoon flight intercepting unidentified targets."

Night Owl was a nice guy, allows you to trash talk over the comm as long as he wasn't involved. He though we must have gotten a bit carried away as he screamed over the head set, doesn't he know that it hurts like hell when some idiot screams over the radio? What-ever, I changed our flights vectors with the Communication, Navigation and Identification screen. You could simply say that it was a group of equipment control which included radar and communication. I could have set the plane on auto-pilot after the heading was set but decided not to, we only get to fly once in a while and even then if we were going to laze around then what was the use? I decided we could afford to live a little as we let loose the after-burners and boy, I can never come over this feeling of sudden adrenaline rush and all the G's against my body. Passing through the sky like free birds, unstoppable. Every thing in sight was gone in a moment as we raced across the sky high above the clouds, with the skies clear of dust, pollution and whatever was there you could just fall in love at first sight of the scene. We closed the after-burners after we were about to cross the sound barrier, we knew our Rapters could easily super-cruise but we weren't going too far and the situation wasn't do or die. Soon enough we were near the unidentified bogeys, We slowed down and I started a gentle dive, after we were close enough to see the helo's but far enough to not be noticed. The helo's were looking small but their shape was unique and easily identifiable, almost all of them were hind's with one different helo and I was pretty sure Belkan didn't use any of em. Whatever the military brass wanted was none of my concern, especially if they weren't Osean. We lowered the throttle a bit more, didn't want to be the ones in the wrong place before starting to climb and got above the cloud's.

"Dragoon 2, would you like to take the stage and lead these fools?"

"Sure why not boss"

"No need Dragoon flight, I'll do the talking."

Night owl took over and started broadcasting on all frequencies, well he was in a E-3 Sentry and was better suited for the job so we just shutted the hell up and stood back. Dragoon 2 sounded a bit dejected by the Night Owls sudden interruption but we did what we were told

"This is Osean airforce AWACS from the 27th..zzzz...chik...zzz..."

"Is there is a chopper with EW capabilities mixed in there?"

"Look what you did Night Owl! These guys were so annoyed with you that they started jamming the radio."

The jamming wasn't as strong as that from that Mt. Nevera Jammer array, it didn't even do anything to our raptors, all it did was cut the broadcast of Night Owl short. Dragoon 2 was sounding very very happy as he poked around Night Owls Pride but it was strange for a chopper using EW system. It wasn't that someone had suddenly thought of strapping an EW system on chopper's, we had AEW choppers so it wasn't a far fetched idea but it was rare to see a helo performing EW duties as helicopter wasn't an ideal platform for ECM system. To be sure I adjusted my radar and performed a scan, there were no other unidentified airborne contacts

"Performing ECCM, restoring comm, This is AWACS Night Owl of Osean Air Defence Force to unidentified aircraft, Identify yourself. You are trespassing into Osean airspace and you will be shot down if you continue to trespass into Osean territory."

"This is Dragoon 2, we heard you on all frequencies Night Owl. No response from unidentified bogeys, please advise."

"This is Night Owl, Dragoon flight hold on. Night Owl is going to contact higher-ups for further directions, meanwhile keep an eye on those fools."

I hated to face reality, if someone used ECM it used to be as good as they declared war but due to our commander in chief's stance which is 'to become understanding and peaceful' which roughly translates to 'Keep cutting the defence budget until the pilots have their planes made from cardboard'. I don't hate him for this, for following the footstep of peace and prosperity but president Harlington, this guy is a bit soft for my taste. I started circling around high above the choppers with 2 sticking on my wing, relying on stealth to stay hidden until it was show time.

"This is Dragoon 1, 2 do you see the AEW helo?"

"Yep, its a Helix."

"When the hell did Belkans started using yuke's stuff boss?"

"They didn't, Last joint exercise they used a Merlin as an AEW and it was for supplementing surface vessels and coastal airbases. I don't think these guys are Belkan."

"What the hell do you mean to say boss? Yuke's have developed some form of dimension travel or something?"

"First of all your science fiction sucks so don't even start about it and these guys aren't even proper military I say."

"Yo boss, mind tellin' me why?"

"Just look at your radar."

I once again did the check-up on my systems, it ain't necessary but doesn't hurt to do so and took a look at my digital LCD MFD screen, to be more precise the CNI or **C**ommunication, **N**avigation and **I**dentification which was already showing the radar display. The flight was in chaos, the hind pilots were flying in every direction. The hinds were flying at different altitude while they moved away from the helix and would return, the most simple way to define them would be that it was a spherical lava lamp, the contents going away only to turn around and come back. Blimps would go here and there, if it weren't for the Helix flying straight I guess we would have never found out where the hell they were going. After a few minutes Night Owl came back

"Night Owl to Dragoon flight, as of right now Belkan air force denies of any of their helo doing any op in the mountains. Force the idiots to divert or land."

"This is Dragoon 1, copy that Night Owl."

"Hey boss, I was going to do the honours right?"

"Yes Dragoon 2, you may proceed to be an international douche bag" Ignoring me my wingman took the lead and we started our descend. After levelling off near the peak of the mountain range we slowed down again, if we went too fast the chopper pilots might be more scared than pay attention to us which they should now. I just relaxed followed my wingman as he prepared for a pass.

"This is Osean airforce 22nd tactical fighter, 6th group, call sign 'Dragoon' to unidentified helicopters. You are to divert back or you will be shot down."

As 2 made his order clear he and I passed by the group of helo's. There were 8 hind's and 1 helix, almost everyone knows what a hind is but helix was not very popular. Ka-27 was one of AEW helo's used by the yuke's but what was it doing here in hierirlark? The bigger question was to which nation did the helicopters belong!? The hinds were coloured in snow camo but it completely different from any I had seen, it had a zigzag pattern all over the place and there was only one emblem over the helo's, an emblem of a spider. As I was deep in my thought suddenly missile warning alarm came to life, the cockpit flashing red I immediately pulled back on my stick and struck the throttle to max to gain some speed. Were they really serious shooting at us!? Did they even think once before shooting!? All these questions came to my mind as I did evasive manoeuvre, I was about to hit the flare's when suddenly the warning was gone as I saw a streak of flame pass clear of my ride. The missile exploded harmlessly far away from my Raptor and I said in a tone as serious as possible.

"Dragoon 2, get back on my wing."

"Rodger that."

The reply was also sharp and serious, I wanted to shoot down every damn one of them but I decided to gain altitude instead and get out of the choppers targeting range, we started a immelmann turn and after we had covered a bit of distance started a split-S, setting up for an attack run from behind the damn bastards in the choppers

"This is Dragoon 1 to Night Owl, we have been fired upon. Engaging hostile forces." I wasn't asking for a permission to engage, I was declaring that the helicopter's were going to be scrap metal in a few minutes.

"This is Night Owl... You are clear to engage Dragoon flight."

I knew the pause was because if these were some mad nuggets there was going to be an international outrage but if they were going to get in our backyard and think that they could mess with us, they were dead wrong.

"Dragoon 2, missile safe, use guns only and try not to kill these idiots."

"This is Dragoon 2, copy that."

Damn~ I was complaining that someone was soft but here I am trying to avoid casualties. This was for the best as I increased the throttle a bit and went in for a gun strafing run, first thing I got in my piper was the helix, even if the guy wanted to do something about if there was no way the huge helo would move on a dime. I let out a short burst from my Vulcan and the rounds struck the engine, then rinse and repeated with a hind that was a bit ahead. My wingman followed the example and did the same with the other hinds, we had shot down 4 out of 9 choppers. I wanted to give a chance to then to turn back but decided not to, these guy's weren't supposed to be here and I was going to make sure that if they were here, they were not in the air. I pulled my stick back gentle and the raptor started a smooth climb, the remaining hind's started to disperse.

"Atleast they know something about flying, what you gotta say about that?"

"Nothing 2 lets shoot em down and grab some beer after getting back to the O-bar."

"This is the only thing about you that I like boss, lets see who'll be an ace today."

Technically we both were aces as we were involved in some aerial intrusion incident before but we just shot down some cargo planes running whatever you can think of across the border and the only threat was some crappy old planes with a poor attempt to arm them with really outdated armament that made my complain for lima sidewinder like a rich ass guy complaining to a begger. So this 'who's gonna be the ace today' was of no use but still my wingman turned his throttle to the max, using after burners sped across the sky.

"what a fool!"

I felt I needed to say this to my wingman as he was going as fast as he could in the given conditions. I just pitched down and lined up my piper, like this I chained one more hind before gaining altitude. While I was at it I peeked on my radar which showed my wingman moving very fast on the blimp labelled hostile and soon the blimp was gone.

"Why the hell did you call me a fool?"

"That's because you 'are' a fool! Who hits after-burners to strike helo's?"

"Yo... Damn missile alert!"

As my wingman suddenly started to manoeuvre to loose the missile on his tail I immediately got on the radio

"Night Owl, what's going on?"

"Dragoon flight they are using stealth! Nothing except you two and the remaining choppers are on my screen."

What the hell! There weren't many aircraft that used stealth and shot air to air missiles at the same time but the few which did weren't many and most of them were made to compete with the raptors, I radioed in my wingman

"2, shit is about to get real around here."

"You don't say boss, I have some of that shit glued right on my tail."

As 2 replied in a frustrated voice the lock on warning radar came to life and I started to dance in the sky, damn I wish we were stationed in the capital.

* * *

**I guess I need to clarify a few things right?**

**First of all despite looking... normal(if not please tell me!) this chapter was a bit tough to write as I decided it was taking too damn long to get my nuggets in the air and we needed some real action in real planes. This is my first time writing for an air combat mission(I used a BARCAP, which is still going on) so I would like as much reviews as possible, constructive criticism is also welcome.**

**Ketamine: This was a serious P.I.A. while writing(the word processor just didn't shut up about it). Some of you might know a bit about the military or have seen the rescue mission or other show which are broadcasted on the discovery channel network or any similar channel for the matter, might know what it is but for those who don't know fret not, here I come to the rescue!**

**Ketamine is like a anesthetic(the stuff dentist use to numb your mouth before performing root canal or similar surgeries, whew! this is personal experience speaking here but ketamine was not used as far as I am concerned)  
**

**It is used by the military and issued to servicemen who use it for pain relief to blowed off limbs as anesthetic numbs the senses, especially pain for the matter. I introduced this guy as a filler when the load up sequence was happening in the chapter big game day, I wanted to make up stuff for the medical kit but decided to work a little and open wikipedia (See! some authors go great length to make sure the readers are given correct info... damn it ain't funny enough)**

**BARCAP: 'Barrier Combat Air Patrol' its like a patrol on borders, just you get to ride planes armed to the teeth while you're at it. In terms of carrier battle group BARCAP is done as a rapid response forward element on standby, so let me put it in a better way. BARCAP is flying air patrol near the 'edge or barrier' of controlled area from where threat's might be coming. Search 'combat air patrol' in wikipedia if you're interested in finding out more.**

**Helix: Think of thunder-head, just that he's using some equipment lacking in 'PUNCH' and he's flying in a chopper.**

**Now coming to the Raptor**

**CNI: I tried to make it self explanatory but realized a fact that most of you readers haven't flown in a raptor!****(and me the author, and by chance there is a person who has flow in a raptor here reading my story... you'll find me dancing like crazy on the rainbow nearest to you).** So CNI is like the radar( which appears in the lower left corner while playing AC5), communication (different channels and frequency adjustment) and the square target identification box which appear in the game(you know the fact that the only reason you can Identify all the planes in the sky without being a real pilot or crashing is that the ACES team has their name appear in the upper left and on the targets themselves) I'll try and research more but this will be the definition of CNI and this will be used in all the planes (whether they are zero or wildcat from AC:X2 or nightraven from AC3 for the sake of simplicity)

**MFD: Multiple Function Display, this guy will tell you everything you need to know; aircraft damage, Fuel, remaining rounds in gun, remaining missile, remaining allied forces, remaining enemy forces, remaining change in wallet(dammit! I got no wallet), it will literally tell you everything you need to know!**

**one more thing, in reality a raptor can arm about 6 AMRAAM and I'll be using that just because the fact that it sounds more better and even more awesome shooting down 6 aircraft in a single salvo compared to shooting down 4.**

**If I left anything, PM me or even better google it(not that I am evil or lazy... I am evil and a bit lazy but not that lazy, the thing is I might not be online when you message me and it might be faster to google something you don't get, I usually use wikipedia for all research and if there is anything out of context that you need to check the whole internet for it, don't worry, be lazy and PM me and I'll get back to you! ('u')/ Fin.**


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